* Copy courtesy of Transit Lounge *
The Cross Thieves by Alan Fyfe is the story of two brothers living below the poverty line in a coastal town in Western Australia (WA). It's a short and punchy novel that takes place over the course of one night and I'll admit the structure took a little getting used to.
It's a third-person narrative that regularly dips into the character's internal perspective but is largely written in past tense with some past continuous tense. In addition, there are also letters back and forth from two female characters, one of whom is the mother of our two protagonists.
A narrator addresses the reader directly and offers to 'tell you the whole thing if you've got the right heart to hear it' but their identity and connection to the story or the characters as they pop in from time to time is unclear.
Here's an example where I love the first line, but the rest is confusing.
"You and I are together inside a comfortable room the height, width, and depth of a page. I can try to manipulate you into having the heart I want you to have by telling you that kind of heart is the right kind. But you get to pick what you believe and what you value. You're alone with that choice as much as I'm alone when I decide what to tell you about these skinny boys.Is the narrator telling me I can think and decide for myself? Don't I already do that? And isn't that true for all stories? I often found myself wondering if the story needed this narrator at all.
As much as Gark and Pell were alone with their choices about what they valued, what ending they picked to aim at, and what to do with that ridiculous cross." Page 100
The inclusion of 80s pop and mysteries of philately that piqued my interest in the blurb are brief - at less than 200 pages it is a short book after all - while Joshua's fascination with the religious meaning in We Built This City by Starship reminded me a little of Patrick Bateman's obsession with music in American Psycho.
The writing also reminded me many times of Tim Winton in terms of the male protagonists living below the poverty line, struggling with their underdog status in the world and living hand to mouth. More than that though, the dialogue and setting in a coastal town in WA in addition to themes of drugs, crime and religion was definitely Wintonesque in my opinion.
Back to the book and the novel has a satisfactory conclusion but the narrator never jumps back in to finalise the story, provide perspective or guide our thoughts about any of the events.
My critique of the story over, I always read the author's Acknowledgements section and there were several issues in this one that affected my overall enjoyment of the book and I'll attempt to outline them here.
The relationship between the brothers was moving and their desperate and ongoing hunger and lack of food or adequate shelter made me feel quite uncomfortable while reading; a testament to the skill of the author. In the Acknowledgements, Fyfe tells us that The Cross Thieves started as an 'impulse to write a neo-epic about people suffering food insecurity' which made perfect sense although there was no resolution or call to action about the issue in the novel, it just 'was'.
Fyfe mentions that the Foodbank's Hunger Report noted that 15% of Australians were experiencing food insecurity in 2018 but a quick Google tells me the figure is now 20% according to the 2025 report. Giving us data that is 8 years old when recent data is more compelling was a lost opportunity.
It's a minor oversight, but the author goes on to claim these problems are easily within reach of solution and that the houseless could be provided with shelter, the hungry fed and the welfare rate increased for a fraction of the price of nuclear submarines. As a Veteran of the ADF, this certainly ruffled my patriotic feathers but acknowledge this is the view of many Australians. While I don't agree with the author's politics, I understand his desire to use this platform to spread his message. Pity there wasn't any advice or resources for those readers motivated to take action other than talk about it on social media, email politicians and take to the streets in protest.
Finally, the author also mentions the following in the Acknowledgements:
"The Cross Thieves is written in a little known (and very old) structure called ring composition. It's not very important that you know what that is, just that it's bloody hard to do." Page 199Despite a BA in Literature, I readily admit I hadn't heard of ring composition before and even after attempting to educate myself on the basics, I wasn't able to recognise elements of this in the novel. It felt condescending for the author to state that it wasn't 'very important' for the reader to know what it is. In my opinion, it's not important at all! It wasn't relevant to the plot and surely it's enough for those readers who do recognise the achievement to do so as part of their overall appreciation of the book. It seemed to me the author was saying 'even if you have no idea what this is, you should be impressed by my writing ability.'
Perhaps if the author had set aside the difficult task of writing in ring composition and spent more time clarifying the role of the narrator I'd have enjoyed the story of Pell and Gark a lot more. They were certainly compelling characters.
All of the above led me to draw the conclusion that The Cross Thieves by Alan Fyfe is best enjoyed by frequent readers of literary fiction able to recognise the achievements of little known writing structures who also appreciate a healthy dose of politics with their fiction.
Carpe Librum!
