On a desolate island miles from civilization, a man finds himself faced with an impossible choice. The man is Tom, a stoic, principled veteran, recently returned to Australia after serving in World War I. He’s damaged goods, carrying a heavy load of guilt for being one of the few to actually make it home from the war, alive and physically unscathed. He finds a job that speaks to his solitary tendencies as a lighthouse keeper on Janus Rock, an isolated island about half a day’s […]
To sleep, perchance to dream
Night Beach (4.5 stars) is about a one very simple thing. A girl surfer-slash-artist has a crush on a boy surfer who sees her — sometimes. But it’s also about a few other very complicated, possibly unreal things, which make this book overall very hard to define. Abbie likes Kane; this much is clear. In fact, she’s obsessed with him, in that painfully teenage way that grovels for the tiniest morsel of acknowledgement and acceptance. This kid, Kane, is a few years older, stays in […]
The Not So Honorable Phryne Fisher
Reviews #12 through 16. Flying Too High (#2), Murder on the Ballarat Train (#3), Death at Victoria Dock (#4), The Green Mill Murder (#5), and Blood and Circuses (#6). The link for this post is for a collection of the first three stories featuring Miss Fisher. The first one (Cocaine Blues) I read last year, so it’s not included in this review. The official blurb for this book is thus: Meet Phryne Fisher, the 1920s’ most elegant and irrepressible sleuth, in her first three adventures […]
This book almost turned me into a rabid frothmonster.
I’m not usually one for books about mommies and gossip and the plight of the suburban housewife, but I am highly susceptible to books everyone seems to love. So I gave in (like I always do). Actually, let’s not even play around and call it “giving in.” I’m a curious bastard. If you get me curious, I’m gonna follow through. And I’m so glad I was curious about this book, because I really ended up loving it. Here is where I would normally give you […]
44-Year-Old Novel Finally Published, Worth the Wait
Australian writer Elizabeth Harrower published several well received novels in the late 1950’s and 1960’s. Her much anticipated fifth novel, In Certain Circles, was set to be published in 1971 when Harrower abruptly changed her mind and withheld it from publication. She essentially retired from writing shortly afterward. In 2014, Text Publishing was able to get Harrower to agree to the publication of In Certain Circles, a novel of post-war Australia that focuses on social class, trauma, and their impact on friendships and romantic relationships. […]
Where Men Are Men and Sheep Are Nervous
Fun fact: from where I live, it’s possible to drive just under a thousand kilometres and pass through eight different countries. Fun fact: this is roughly the same distance as between Sydney and Brisbane. And in Australia, those two are practically neighbours. Australia is mind-bogglingly big, is the point I’m trying to make. So is Bill Bryson in In a Sunburned Country, his report of a roundtrip through Australia in the late nineties. In fact, it is something of a recurring theme within the book: […]