Superb lyrebirds (Menura novaehollandiae) are nature’s archivists. From chirrups to chainsaws, they gather the sounds of the forest and preserve them in living playback. We mistake it for avian showmanship but it is also testimony: their songs record the damage we do, the creatures we erase. Lyrebirds hold us to account.
Johanna Bell’s debut, Department of the Vanishing, is a lyrebird of a book. It sounds like plenty of other things: you can hear snatches of Barbara Kingsolver and Richard Powers; Australian eco-novelists like James Bradley, Charlotte McConaghy and Jennifer Mills; and the poetry of John Kinsella and Judith Wright. But Bell is no imitator, she’s making her own noise. She opens with a magnificent chorus: a double-page spread of transliterated birdsong. It reads like a manifesto – a statement of what’s at stake.
