DAVID RAIN Volcano Street. Reviewed by Michelle McLaren
Nostalgia casts a long shadow in this novel about small-town life and secrets. Although we associate the word ‘nostalgia’ with a wistful longing for the past, the term was originally coined in the 1700s to describe a medical condition suffered by soldiers fighting on...
JULIAN DAVIES Crow Mellow. Reviewed by Michael Richardson
This deliberately strange and inventive homage to Aldous Huxley is a novel of ideas that will draw each reader in differently. Crow Mellow makes no secret of its strangeness. The book is narrower in size than normal, the author’s name in small type, just two sentences...
NICHOLAS JOSE Bapo. Reviewed by Michael Richardson
Discomfiting reflections and literary pleasures are to be found in this new collection of stories inspired by China. In his new collection, Bapo, Nicholas Jose has assembled stories touched – in ways both direct and hidden – by China. Each is sleek, elegant, unique;...
NIGEL FEATHERSTONE The Beach Volcano. Reviewed by Walter Mason
In an exploration of modern Australian life, this novel lays bare the complexities at the heart of human relationships. The great contradictions and betrayals of family life are the central concerns of Nigel Featherstone’s new novel, The Beach Volcano, and reading it...
ALAN MURRAY Luigi’s Freedom Ride. Reviewed by Jody Lee
This novel traverses the brutality of war and displacement to offer hope and compassion. Even as his eighty-first birthday drew near, Luigi Ferraro was a handsome and stylish man … His easy unhurried manner said Luigi Ferraro was comfortable with himself and his...
IAN SHADWELL Slush Pile. Reviewed by Linda Funnell
This cautionary tale takes aim at the literary life. ‘I am not a normal person. I am a writer,’ declares Michael Ardenne, the antihero of Ian Shadwell’s takedown of literary narcissism. Michael is a prodigy, having won the Booker Prize for his first novel before he...
RJURIK DAVIDSON Unwrapped Sky. Reviewed by Keith Stevenson
This debut weaves a prodigious tapestry around its drowned world; the result is an example of the best of contemporary Australian fantasy writing. The city of Caeli-Amur was born out of the imagination of Australian writer Rjurik Davidson in 2005 with his Ditmar...
BERNARD COHEN The Antibiography of Robert F Menzies. Reviewed by Michael Richardson
Robert Menzies, John Howard, the dreams and delusions of Australian politics – all resonate in this satirical and inventive novel. Typically, reviews begin with a snippet from the book in question or with a short description of the work and its main concerns. In form...
ANITA HEISS Tiddas. Reviewed by Michael Jongen
The personal is political in this joyful, and poignant, novel of five women friends on the cusp of turning 40. Tiddas is a delightful novel that covers 12 months in the lives of five friends as they struggle with life, love and lust and the consequences thereof. The...
BOYD ANDERSON The Heart Radical. Reviewed by Suzanne Rath
This compelling account of a little-known period is rich in history and plot. The fifth novel by Australian author Boyd Anderson is set in a relatively unknown time in history, covering several years in Malaya from Japanese occupation until the ’emergency’, when...
ALEXIS WRIGHT The Swan Book. Reviewed by Annette Hughes
Set in a dystopian future, The Swan Book is completely individual yet universal – polemical, poetic and grimly humorous, with multiverses of meaning. What a ride! The irresistible narrative force, the crackling idiosyncratic voice and the expansive, imaginative...
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