ROXANE GAY Difficult Women. Reviewed by Linda Godfrey
Women’s difficult lives are laid bare with a surgeon’s precision in this collection. This is a collection of 21 short stories about women in relation to the men in their worlds. I had to think long and hard about the title. The more I read the stories, the...
Crime Scene: DIRK KURBJUWEIT Fear. Reviewed by Lou Murphy
Violence, and fear, fester beneath the surface when a middle-class family is stalked by a creepy downstairs neighbour. The Tiefenthalers are your typical bourgeois Berlin family. Their story is related by Randolph Tiefenthaler, a 45-year-old husband, father of two,...
The Godfather: Peter Corris on things lost but not forgotten
Have you ever lost something you valued? Just found it gone, vanished like that single sock lost in the wash? In a longish life I can think of a few instances, some of which still tease me. One of my much-admired uncles – to my shame I can’t remember whether was Uncle...
CK STEAD The Name on the Door is Not Mine: stories new and selected. Reviewed by Carmel Bird
Stead’s short stories contest truth and identity – and feature a winged man, scary women, and a hint of Edna Everidge. One of the most important elements of a short story is its structure. In these 12 pieces gathered from across the lengthy and...
SARAH FLANNERY MURPHY The Possessions. Reviewed by Sally Nimon
The Possessions is an unsettling debut conjuring a world where the dead may speak through the living. What makes you you? Is it the lipstick you wear? The way you talk? An unselfconscious moment captured in a photograph? Or is it the impression you leave on...
The Godfather: Peter Corris on hair
I am not a particularly hairy man. The hair on my chest is minimal, I have none on my back and my facial hair is not especially abundant. But, at nearly 75, I have a thick, low growing, all-over covering of hair on my head. My hairline hasn’t retreated a millimetre...
CAROLINE BAUM Only: A singular memoir. Reviewed by Shelley McInnis
Baum’s memoir is replete with examples of emotional deftness of the highest order. I have very much enjoyed Caroline Baum’s published essays, and it is a delight to see two of them appearing as familiar landmarks in this big map of a memoir. One, entitled...
GRAHAM SWIFT Mothering Sunday: A romance. Reviewed by Folly Gleeson
Mothering Sunday gives us a moving exploration of a particular day, and opens up a rich look at the nature of writing. Graham Swift’s wonderful novella concerns one particular Mothering Sunday, that of 30 March 1924. Mothering Sunday was a sort of...
The Godfather: Peter Corris on how technology changes the plot
In the television program Life on Mars a character from the present has gone back to the past and at a moment of plot crisis shouts in frustration, ‘I need my mobile!’ ‘Your mobile what?’ someone responds. This illustrates the effect time and technology can have on...
SUE WOOLFE Do You Love Me Or What? Reviewed by Carmel Bird
These short stories from Sue Woolfe offer alienation, yearning and brilliance. The final story in this collection of eight pieces is an extract from the personal papers of an unnamed fiction writer, with footnotes by Professor Amelia Broughton, who has prepared...
Scoundrel Days Giveaway
We have one copy of Scoundrel Days to give away. To go in the draw, simply email us at editors@newtownreviewofbooks.com.au with SCOUNDREL in the subject line and your name and address in the body of the email by 6pm March 9, 2017. As we are unable...
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