Crime Scene: DANIEL WOODRELL Winter’s Bone. Reviewed by Peter Corris
A novel of abandonment, crank and the Ozarks, written with flinty integrity. Daniel Woodrell has written several novels set in the Ozark region of the central United States. One critic has termed his work ‘hillbilly noir’, and if you’re interested in this sub-genre,...
DAVID LEAVITT The Two Hotel Francforts. Reviewed by Michael Jongen
The Two Hotel Francforts is an elegant novel of individual concerns set against a background of desperate times. In Lisbon in 1940, two American couples meet up in the chaotic city as they join other exiles desperate to flee to the United States. The story is narrated...
ARMISTEAD MAUPIN The Days of Anna Madrigal. Reviewed by Michael Jongen
With beautiful symmetry, this novel brings Tales of the City back to where it all began. The Days of Anna Madrigal brings the Tales of the City to a highly satisfactory and emotional close. I savoured the reading and the comfort of catching up with old friends I have...
DONNA TARTT The Goldfinch. Reviewed by Michael Jongen
Is life a gift? Taking us from New York to Las Vegas to Amsterdam, Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch is a richly textured examination of survival. Theo Decker is the 13-year-old survivor of the bombing of a museum he is visiting with his mother. Before the explosion he was...THOMAS PYNCHON Bleeding Edge. Reviewed by Michael Richardson
The author of Gravity’s Rainbow takes on corporate greed, 9/11 and the dark unconscious of the internet; the result is surreal, satirical and far from trifling. To hold one of Thomas Pynchon’s novels unopened is to be on the cusp of near infinite possibility. There is...PATRICK NESS The Crane Wife. Reviewed by Paula Grunseit
An ancient folk tale reworked in modern London provides a meditation on memory and the creative spirit. A story never ends at the end. There is always after … No, a story is not an explanation, it is a net, a net through which the truth flows. The net catches some of...DOUGLAS KENNEDY Five Days. Reviewed by Paula Grunseit
The author of The Pursuit of Happiness delivers a sweeping American saga laced with philosophy. Set in Maine and Boston, Douglas Kennedy’s 11th novel is narrated by Laura, a middle-aged radiographic technician with a husband and two children. Married for 21 years to...AMITY GAIGE Schroder. Reviewed by Rose Powell
A cleverly constructed identity disintegrates in the face of the bond between father and daughter. Schroder is the quiet and brave third novel by Amity Gaige. It explores the long shadows of lies, the short work lies can make of everything you hold dear, and the...C JOSEPH GREAVES Hard Twisted. Reviewed by Peter Corris
Greaves channels Cormac McCarthy in this compelling Depression-era novel of a couple on the run. If, like me, you’ve been waiting impatiently for Cormac McCarthy’s novel The Passenger, which is said to be ‘forthcoming’, Hard Twisted will do until it gets here. The...T C BOYLE San Miguel. Reviewed by Kylie Mason
Desolation and isolation haunt two families living decades apart on the bleakest of California’s Channel Islands On New Year’s Day, 1888, Marantha Waters arrives on San Miguel island, off the Californian coast, with her husband, Will, daughter, Edith, and maid, Ida....
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