The Turning is a series of interconnected stories set in southwestern Australia, largely in or around the coastal town of Angelus, that take place from the 1960s through the mid-2000s.
In the first story, “Big World,” the narrator and his friend Biggie finish high school with disappointing results, failing to get into university. Hoping to avoid a future life of small-town drudgery, they buy a rickety van and leave town, heading north to a more tropical region. The narrator is disappointed when they pick up Meg, a backpacker, and she and Biggie abandon him after the van breaks down. A year later, Biggie dies in a mining accident. The narrator returns to Angelus to retake his exams and comes to live a middle-class, family life.
“Abbreviation” follows Vic Lang on a family beach holiday in White Point for New Year’s 1973. There, amidst familial strife and a boating accident that his troublemaker uncle, Ernie, caused, Vic has a brief, impactful love affair—including his first kiss—with a girl missing a finger named Melanie.
In the third story, “Aquifer,” the narrator of “Aquifer” sees on TV that bones have been recovered from a swamp in the Perth suburb where he used to live. He returns there and recalls his childhood in an extended flashback. Eventually he reveals that he saw his bully, a boy named Alan Mannering, drowned in the swamp and never told anyone; now, he figures the recently recovered bones must be Alan’s. The narrator also reflects on the nature of time, finding his old neighborhood completely unfamiliar, with the exception of an Aboriginal family, the Joneses, though in a dark irony he sees them being evicted.
The wife adult Vic Lang narrates “Damaged Goods,” in which she travels to Angelus to understand a boyhood obsession Vic had with Strawberry Alison, a girl with a facial birthmark who died in a car accident. Vic’s wife expresses her frustrations with Vic’s inability to let go of the past but acknowledges the many tragedies that have plagued his life. Vic’s wife had a difficult childhood too, marked by domineering, extremely religious parents, but she feels that her marriage is becoming increasingly strained.
In “Small Mercies,” Peter Dyson returns to Angelus with his son Ricky after the suicide of his wife, Sophie. The simultaneous return of his capricious high school love, Fay Keenan, whose deeply Catholic family he was very close with, impedes his attempt at a fresh start. Fay is a recovering addict, and her parents, Marjorie and Don, ask Peter to help her. Fay eventually attempts to have sex with Peter, who refuses, even though she threatens to reveal to her parents that she had an abortion when they were together and implies that experience was the root cause of her later addiction.
“On Her Knees” depicts an episode of Vic and Vic’s mother’s lives in Perth, where they move after Vic’s father abandons them and when Vic starts university. In the story, they grapple with a false accusation of theft that a woman Vic’s mother does housework for makes against Vic’s mother.
Brakey, the protagonist of “Cockleshell,” develops a strange obsession with his classmate and neighbor Agnes Larwood, watching her fish for cobblers in the estuary every evening. Brakey starts to join Agnes each evening, but his longing for her is destined to remain a memory; first she rejects his advances, and then her family’s house burns down, killing Agnes’s father, and the welfare office abruptly moves the survivors away.
In “The Turning,” also set in White Point, Raelene, a mother and wife to an abusive fisherman husband, Max, develops a tight-knit friendship with a woman named Sherry. Raelene is consumed by the difference between their marriages; Sherry’s kind, attentive husband Dan is the polar opposite of Max. Raelene learns that Dan is a recovering alcoholic and that through recovery, he and Sherry have become very religious. Raelene tries and fails to find spirituality herself, instead taking to frequent solitary walks at night on the beach. Sherry urges her to leave Max, who becomes increasingly violent, but Raelene refuses. Max mistakes Raelene’s friendship for the signs of an affair and brutally attacks her; when word gets out, he is fired from his job. At the story’s end, in the midst of a horrific marital rape, Raelene feels that she has finally found belief, against all odds.
In the next story, “Sand,” 10-year-old Max and his younger brother, Frank go to White Point for a holiday with their father. Max plays a cruel prank on sensitive Frank that causes him to defecate himself.
In “Family” Frank, now a gifted football (soccer) player, returns to White Point alone for an impulse surfing trip, after he has flunked out of professional sports for unclear reasons. Paddling out, he finds Max surfing alone after he has been fired. They surf together, confronting each other for perceived grievances; Frank reveals that his failure in sports is because of Max, whose bullying left lifelong scars on his psyche. A shark attack interrupts their confrontation, and Max’s leg is nearly torn off. As Max bleeds out, Frank desperately tries to get him back to the shore. As a wave pulls them both under, he refuses to let go of Max.
In “Long, Clear View” an adolescent Vic Lang, new to Angelus, lives in a world of paranoia and fear. Facing a difficult adjustment to the small town, Vic’s father Bob’s work as a policeman contributes to his poor state of mind, especially as crime worsens. Vic takes to waiting by the window with his father’s rifle as a way to feel safe, living under a siege mentality disastrous for his mental health.
“Reunion” is once again narrated by Vic’s wife, Gail, and follows their Christmas celebrations with Vic’s mother Carol. Carol drinks champagne with them, which is a surprise, as she is normally sober due to her runaway husband Bob’s alcoholism, and she and Gail finally bond with each other.
“Commission” details Vic’s search for his father, a deathbed request from Carol. Since running off Bob has been living deep in the desert; as Vic drives, he listens to reports on the radio of a royal commission on police misconduct. Vic finds Bob and is surprised to learn that he has been sober for 15 years. Bob agrees to come back with Vic, but neither of them are ready—or able—to give the other what they desire most; for Bob, forgiveness, and for Vic, an explanation for why Bob left him. Vic realizes that Carol sent him to find Bob to reunite him with his father, not just to bring Bob to her.
“Fog,” set 10 months after the Lang family’s arrival in Angelus, depicts Bob—already drinking on the job—in the midst of search and rescue operation with a missing climber. Finding the climber with the help of a cadet journalist named Marie but trapped overnight on the mountain, Bob despairs about his position and comes close to telling Marie everything he knows—or suspects—about the corruption in Angelus.
“Boner McPharlin’s Moll” explores crime in 1970s Angelus from the other side, as the narrator, Jackie, becomes the girlfriend of the boy in the sheepskin coat, Boner McPharlin, though their relationship is more of a sexless friendship. Expelled from school and fired from the meatworks, Boner becomes increasingly implicated in crime, the drug trade in particular. Detectives and, separately, Bob Lang, approach Jackie for information about Boner, and she implies that Boner is only a pawn in a larger game. Jackie and Boner drift apart, and eventually she leaves for university. When she visits Angelus again years later, Boner has deteriorated, rambling incoherently and making threats when she pays him a visit. Decades later, the same detectives summon Jackie back to Angelus, explaining that Boner is to be committed to a mental hospital. He has now become completely incoherent, and Jackie is called because of disturbing cut-out photos of her he has kept with his pornography. Jackie is disgusted but continues to visit Boner in the hospital over the years. Eventually Boner dies. Connecting the dots, Jackie realizes that the detectives themselves were involved in crime with Boner, and that they deliberately drove him insane to get him out of the way, using her in the process.
In “Immunity,” the narrator of “Immunity” reflects on a train ride she took as a high-school girl with a young Vic Lang, a cadet at the time. Talking to him, she hides the fact that they went to school together and learns of his professed immunity from death: a close call with a bullet on the firing range has convinced him that he is safe. As they arrive in Angelus, Bob Lang’s police car is waiting, and the narrator reveals that Vic’s sister had been hospitalized for meningitis and later died.
The final story, “Defender,” follows Vic and Gail as they visit Gail’s friends at their country home, taking place after Gail’s trip to Angelus and the death of Vic’s parents. Vic is in poor health. Much to Vic’s chagrin, Gail has started going to church again. Gail is already frustrated with Vic’s inability to let go of the past and snaps when he tells her he ran into an Aboriginal man he used to play basketball with in Angelus, wanted to get a drink with him, but decided against it, seemingly (to Gail) because of racial bias. Gail then reveals to Vic that she had an affair in Angelus. Gail’s friends, Fenn and Daisy, welcome them, and while their home is beautiful, Vic privately speculates about the financial precarity the large property has put them in. Vic goes to lie down and worries that Gail thinks he is a racist; he also worries about himself, as he is more upset by that than he is by her affair.
Waking up, Vic goes for a walk and encounters Daisy’s daughter Keira, whom he takes back to her mother. He then explains to Gail why he could not face the Aboriginal man: he had helped his father, then in the throes of alcoholism, to deliver the Aboriginal man’s younger brother to prison. Gail is moved but also confused and hurt by Vic’s avoidance of the subject of her affair. As they return to the house, Fenn has set up a skeet trap, and invites them to shoot. While Vic is wary of guns, given his past, he agrees to shoot, as no person or animal will get hurt. As he shoots, he reflects on everything that has happened to him and everything he has overcome, looking out at the sunset sky, realizes he feels happy.
