JESSICA JOHNS Bad Cree. Reviewed by Robert Goodman
Jessica Johns’ debut novel does not discount the importance of dreams and the persistence of spirits. Jessica Johns claims that she wrote her horror-inspired novel Bad Cree ‘as a form of revenge’. The revenge was against what could be described as the mainstream...
DEBORAH LEVY The Cost of Living. Reviewed by Anna Verney
In this month’s Flashback Friday, Anna Verney assesses Deborah Levy’s 2018 memoir The Cost of Living. As readers of South African-born British writer Deborah Levy’s literary fiction will know, it always has an unsettlingly allusive quality. While grounded...
JODI PICOULT and JENNIFER FINNEY BOYLAN Mad Honey. Reviewed by Sally Nimon
What did happen to Lily? Jodi Picoult’s collaboration with Jennifer Finney Boylan is much more than a murder mystery. Mad Honey is the latest novel from Jodi Picoult, a collaboration with fellow writer Jennifer Finney Boylan. The term ‘mad honey’ refers to a...
MEG HOWREY They’re Going to Love You. Reviewed by Ann Skea
The new novel from the author of The Wanderers explores relationships within the New York ballet world. It is clear from the very beginning that Carlisle Martin is a dancer. ‘Feel what I feel,’ she tells us, as she instructs us in the movements that will result in us...
ANNE TYLER French Braid. Reviewed by CJ Pardey
The Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist demonstrates there is little she doesn’t know about human nature. Anne Tyler’s most recent novel, her twenty-fourth, French Braid covers familiar territory. If this was said about any other novelist it might be a...
ASTRID SCHOLTE League of Liars. Reviewed by Amelia Dudley
Melbourne-based Astrid Scholte’s new novel pits its characters against injustice. Liars … recount their stories perfectly. As though they’ve memorised the story from start to finish. However, the truth is organic. Details are remembered in bits and pieces....
HILMA WOLITZER Today a woman went mad in the supermarket. Reviewed by Ann Skea
Hilma Wolitzer’s stories capture the extraordinary within the ordinary in this collection that showcases her work from the 1960s to now. A woman went mad in the supermarket … well, haven’t we all felt like that at times, especially if we have had two small...
RACHEL CUSK Second Place. Reviewed by Linda Godfrey
Rachel Cusk’s 11th novel is touted as a return to plot and character; in the process it explores power, art and agency. Second Place is an epistolary novel comprising a series of letters written by M to a friend, Jeffers. She writes of her experience looking at...
JHUMPA LAHIRI Whereabouts. Reviewed by Ann Skea
Pulitzer-winner Jhumpa Lahiri explores solitude and life choices in Whereabouts, her first novel since The Lowland in 2013. This is not a happy book, nor is it a conventional novel in the sense of fiction with a plot, or a storyline. Instead, its brief chapters offer...
UNA MANNION A Crooked Tree. Reviewed by Ann Skea
Una Mannion’s debut novel explores the lives of five siblings and how they deal with a series of increasingly dangerous situations. ‘Out. Get out.’ My mom said it with her voice low, which let us know she meant it. Ellen reached across Thomas, opened the back...
MARY-ROSE MACCOLL The True Story of Maddie Bright. Reviewed by Kim Kelly
The True Story of Maddie Bright captures the challenges of the writing life with wit and romance. Intriguing from the opening scenes, which play out in the grim between-wars London of 1921 and a possum-ridden Brisbane house 60 years on, Mary-Rose MacColl’s sixth and...
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