He has no great achievements to show for himself, just his orchard and his family. He has led a quiet life on the farm with his wife, Mrs Wigg, who died a few years ago. ‘Mr Wigg had squandered his life’ reads the first line of the book. Here he grows a range of stone fruit, listens to the cricket on the radio, bakes with his grandchildren, reminisces about his life and works hard on a secret project. Set in 1971, the story takes place on Mr Wigg’s farm in South-West NSW. Mr Wigg is an enchanting new novel by Queensland author, Inga Simpson. Tags: Byron bay writers festival, hachette, inga simpson, Lisa Walker, mr wigg, nature writing, nest, review This is my fourth review for the Australian Women Writers Challenge 2014. Inga Simpson will be appearing at the Byron Bay Writers Festival this weekend. Reading ‘Nest’ left me with a hankering to curl up a tree and have the wind blow me to sleep. The story plays out at a steady pace with the lost children adding a page-turning backbone. Despite the missing children, it is optimistic and full of a childlike sense of wonder at our world. Like Inga’s previous novel, ‘Mr Wigg’, ‘Nest’ is a gently told book, written in simple, evocative prose. A lover of nests and tall trees, she learned to climb into the canopy with her former partner, Craig – ‘… once up in the mist, among salamanders and lichens and liverworts barely seen by another human being, she had found her tree legs.’ Jen is a complex character whose relationship with Henry is touching and authentic. They not only held the sunlight, but emitted a glow of their own, as if illuminated from within.’ The birds and the bush are described in warm detail – ‘The limbs of the brush-box tended to horizontal, like a reaching arm, and their leaves were large and flattish. Inga is an accomplished nature writer and her love of wild places comes out through her character’s observations. One of the delightful things about this book is the way it immerses us in the natural world. Revelations fall one on top of the other as the story unfolds. Returning home requires her to come to terms with her own history, in particular the disappearance of her father. As we get to know Jen we learn more about the hurts she is holding inside. The mystery of the missing children provides a dark undercurrent to Jen’s simple life on her property. The loss of Caitlin brings back memories from Jen’s past and another missing child, Michael. It is through Henry that she learns a girl from the town has gone missing. With the exception of her young pupil Henry, who she is teaching to draw, she has little social contact. There, she regenerates her patch of land and draws the many birds attracted by her birdbath. After a relationship breakup and her mother’s death, Jen returns to the town she grew up in. ‘She was trying to capture the wild – the essence of leaf, flower and bird.’ Jen, the protagonist of Inga Simpson’s book, ‘Nest’ is an artist, a drawer of birds.

Mr wigg by inga simpson