Jack Cameron Stanton

Toltz’s loquacious and rambling style seems, in isolation, to carry an aphoristic indictment of our techno-saturated society. But put together, what does it mean? Do they even belong together?

Hooper dug through court transcripts, documents and interviews to recreate the Black Saturday bushfires and inquest and to present a context for her account of Brendan Sokaluk’s crimes. If not handled carefully, reconstruction narratives can turn stories into unsolvable puzzles. This is because they derive their narrative coherence from atomised sources that often conflict with each other. While Hooper does allow her multiple characters many digressions, The Arsonist achieves its clarity through strict linear chronology.