KATE MORTON Homecoming. Reviewed by Ann Skea
Set in Sydney and the Adelaide Hills, Kate Morton’s new novel unwinds a mystery stretching across generations. Anyone who has read Kate Morton’s earlier novels will know that she excels at setting the scene, creating interesting and likeable characters, leading...
KYLIE NEEDHAM Girl in a Pink Dress. Reviewed by Annette Hughes
Kylie Needham’s debut novel contemplates what happens when a muse is also an artist. The ‘girl in a pink dress’ is Frances, a young art student who charms her tutor (twice her age) and becomes his muse. The trope of the older male artist and the younger female...
RONNIE SCOTT Shirley. Reviewed by Jessica Stewart
Ronnie Scott’s second novel explores themes of abandonment, attachment and the idea of home. Characterised from the beginning by a sense of uncertainty, Shirley is a novel where anything can happen, and probably will. Names are ambiguous, sexuality is fluid,...
GREGORY DAY The Bell of the World. Reviewed by Paul Anderson
Gregory Day’s new novel explores the sublime through the life of a young woman in his beloved Otways. In the essay ‘Otway Taenarum’ in his previous book, Words are Eagles (2022), Day recounts how, at a formative age, he looked for ‘imaginative texts...
JOHN DALE The Faculty. Reviewed by Airlie Lawson
This insider’s satire of university life is no advertisement for an academic career. The premise of John Dale’s new novel is simple, age-old even: ambitious young thing gets dream job – but discovers that, in reality, it’s closer to a nightmare. The book opens with a...
FIONA McFARLANE The Sun Walks Down. Reviewed by Ben Ford Smith
Fiona McFarlane’s story of a lost child reveals a cross-section of colonial Australia. ‘The boy met a god by the hollow tree.’ So begins Fiona McFarlane’s second novel, The Sun Walks Down, and so begins a kaleidoscopic tour through the social strata of early...
Christmas 2022 Giveaway #1
What a year it’s been, and it’s not (quite) over yet. To get you in a festive mood, we’ve got some seriously good books to celebrate the season. To go in the draw to win all four of the titles below, simply email editors@newtownreviewofbooks.com.au...
SHAUN PRESCOTT Bon and Lesley. Reviewed by Paul Anderson
Sean Prescott’s second novel recounts an escape to the country – or does it? ‘No Australian under 50 has seen a time like this in their adult lives,’ declared a recent op-ed on Black Swan events. That’s one possible way into this intense, Jungian novel. Bon and...
MYKAELA SAUNDERS (ed.) This All Come Back Now. Reviewed by Robert Goodman
This anthology showcases the range of First Nations speculative fiction. This All Come Back Now is a collection of speculative fiction by First Nations authors curated by Mykaela Saunders, who observes that First Nations writers in this genre are rarely able to get...
ISOBEL BEECH Sunbathing. Reviewed by Robyne Young
Isobel Beech’s debut novel explores the grief left behind by a father’s suicide. From the opening scene when the unnamed daughter in Sunbathing crawls into the attic to retrieve her father’s dying cat, Donna, Isobel Beech creates an intimacy with the reader, bringing...
JAY CARMICHAEL Marlo. Reviewed by Ivan Crozier
Set in the 1950s, Jay Carmichael’s second novel is a window onto Australia’s queer history. In the closing paragraph of the author’s note to Marlo, Jay Carmichael tells us that for him, ‘the task of the historical novel’ is to fill the gap between what we...
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