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Demons Were Banished
Storms is a heartfelt coming-of-age tale where eight-year-old Annie Ryan faces the emotional turbulence of family, loss, and identity during a storm-ridden caravan journey across 1970s Australia. What inspired you to tell this story through the eyes of an eight-year-old?
I felt that it would have more of an impact if it were told by the person who was the same age, rather than as a retelling from the benefit of the perspective of age. These events happened to the child, not the adult, and as time passes, we tend to gloss over events. I didn’t want that for Annie. These events were real for her, and they needed to remain that way.
How much of Storms is drawn from your own life, and what was the most difficult part of the book to write emotionally?
The book is a fictionalised account of my own experience as an 8-year-old travelling in a caravan with the rest of the family. Most of the events are real, with a few exceptions. For example, my stepfather didn’t die until I was pregnant with my fifth child; however, in Storms, he does meet an untimely end. The most difficult part to write emotionally was the sexual assault scene. My original draft had it all in graphic detail, but this was for my own benefit and was my way of expunging the event from my life. I was then able to sit back and write it so that it would still have an impact, but the graphic detail was no longer there. Although it was emotionally draining to write, it was also cathartic, and those particular demons were banished.
The metaphor of storms is used throughout. Was that a conscious framework from the start, or did it evolve as you wrote?
Yes, indeed it was. It was a stormy time from the perspective of the weather, which became a metaphor for the events of the whole year. Just like storms have their calm centres, so too did that year. This only made the turbulence of the key events stand out more. And like all storms, the storms of that year did end in rainbows and sunshine – literally and figuratively!
What is the next book that you are working on, and when will it be available?
That’s a very good question! I find myself at a bit of a standstill now, overwhelmed by all the stories I have in progress, and unable to focus on just one. I’d like to write Annie’s sequel, Snake in the Grass, and will do that soon. Before that, though, I hope to have a collection of Private Investigator/Detective stories ready for May 2026, but I will have to get a move on if I am to do that!
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Leaving their home in Brisbane, Australia, at the height of the 1974 floods during intense cyclonic weather, the Ryans set off on their epic journey, traveling ahead of the storms everywhere they go.
But storms of the heart are more difficult to navigate, and Annie faces more tragedy and heartache in this one year than a young girl should in a lifetime.
Award-winning author, Phoebe Wilby, was raised in Australia. She has lived in several countries and considers herself a ‘citizen of the world’.
Storms is her debut novel, following two short story collections and a memoir.
Storms
After reading Phoebe Wilby’s Storms, I found myself holding a bittersweet kind of admiration for the raw and emotionally-charged journey she’s captured through the eyes of young Annie Ryan. This novel is a coming-of-age memoir wrapped in the chaos of a family road trip across Australia in the 1970s. It begins with a Christmas promise, the anticipation of a trampoline, which unravels into a year-long caravan trek brought on not by choice, but by a father’s authoritarian rule. Told through the lens of an eight-year-old girl, the book balances nostalgia and grief, humor and heartbreak, and manages to say quite a bit about resilience, fractured families, and the loss of innocence.
I was immediately struck by how honest and unfiltered Annie’s voice felt. There’s a heartbreaking tension between her childlike enthusiasm and the creeping understanding that not everything is fair or safe in her world. The writing is straightforward, sometimes poetic, but never pretentious. Wilby captures the complexities of a blended family, especially one hiding behind the thin veneer of normalcy, with such brutal clarity that at times I had to put the book down and just sit with the weight of it. Some parts were hard to read, especially the subtle and not-so-subtle dynamics of control, silence, and emotional neglect. Still, Annie’s wit and insight cut through the darkest moments, making her impossible not to root for.
At times, the pacing slowed, especially in the middle of the journey, but it somehow worked, mirroring the long and exhausting nature of the trip itself. What carried me through was the deeply personal way Wilby described everything: the weather, the landscape, the moods, the subtle shifts in family dynamics. Her use of metaphor, especially around storms both literal and emotional, felt ike something she’d been carrying a long time. I felt angry. I laughed. I felt sad. That kind of emotional whiplash is rare and a sign of good storytelling.
Storms is not fast or flashy. It doesn’t wrap anything up neatly. But if you’ve ever grown up feeling like a bystander in your own family, or if you’ve ever carried the weight of being too old for your age, this book will resonate with you. I’d recommend it for readers who love memoir-style fiction, who want something thoughtful and real, who don’t mind a few emotional bruises along the way.
Pages: 496 | ISBN: 0473721279
LITERARY TITAN 