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'Earworm is a tale of grief, desire, infidelity and family secrets narrated by a love song.
Empty Fairground’ is a hit from the nineties. Nicole was conceived to it and now it dwells in her head—a living entity accessing her thoughts and dreams. When Nicole discovers her deceased father is not her biological parent, certainties disintegrate and the song strives to separate fantasy from memory and myth from history, building towards an extraordinary crescendo.
Drenched in rhythm and the vividness of pop lyrics, Earworm explores the complexities of filial and romantic love, connecting us to our universal communion with music.'
Source: Publisher's blurb.
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
-
Telling Tune
2020
single work
review
— Appears in: Meanjin , Autumn vol. 79 no. 1 2020;
— Review of Earworm 2018 single work novel'Unusual narrators in fiction demonstrate how a willing suspension of disbelief touches every aspect of the reading experience. After a few pages of Ian McEwan’s Nutshell, we are reconciled to the fact that the narrator is a foetus. In Tibor Fischer’s The Collector Collector, we grow comfortable under the guidance of a narrator that is a 6000-year-old Mesopotamian bowl. Likewise, in Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones, we accept a narrator who is dead. Fiction is replete with narrators that are atoms, horses, bees and death itself. Colin Varney’s Earworm adds a song to this list of unusual narrators.' (Introduction)
-
Telling Tune
2020
single work
review
— Appears in: Meanjin , Autumn vol. 79 no. 1 2020;
— Review of Earworm 2018 single work novel'Unusual narrators in fiction demonstrate how a willing suspension of disbelief touches every aspect of the reading experience. After a few pages of Ian McEwan’s Nutshell, we are reconciled to the fact that the narrator is a foetus. In Tibor Fischer’s The Collector Collector, we grow comfortable under the guidance of a narrator that is a 6000-year-old Mesopotamian bowl. Likewise, in Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones, we accept a narrator who is dead. Fiction is replete with narrators that are atoms, horses, bees and death itself. Colin Varney’s Earworm adds a song to this list of unusual narrators.' (Introduction)
