AustLit

'Approximate Life: The Prince and Other Stories brings together three acclaimed collections for the first time. Letters to Francesca (1996), The Prince (1997) and Duckness (1998) range across forms, from short story to novella and screenplay, and from surrealism to hyperreality-connected by common characters as well as themes of identity, authenticity and artifice. They are playful and poignant, satirical and serious, with echoes of Borges and Calvino grounded in a distinctly Australian perspective.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Freelance travel writer and Lonely Planet guidebook contributor Tim Richards decides to shake up his life by taking an epic rail journey across Australia. Jumping aboard iconic trains like the Indian Pacific, Overland and Spirit of Queensland, he covers over 7,000 kilometres, from the tropics to the desert and from big cities to ghost towns. Tim's journey is one of classic travel highs and lows: floods, cancellations, extraordinary landscapes and forays into personal and public histories - as well as the steady joy of random strangers encountered along the way.' (Publication summary)

The narrator's partially autistic brother, Michael, has been accused of murdering his elderly neighbour, Yvette Michel. His solicitor comes to visit the narrator, encouraging her to visit Michael herself, trying to build a case for Michael being legally insane. The narrator tries to refuse, remembering her cool relationship with her brother in their childhood and the difficulties her family had in settling him in a suitable home.

Eventually, the narrator goes to visit him. Michael reveals that the police are framing him: the woman he murdered was actually serial killer Myra Hindley, and the police claimed that Michael called 'Yvette' the Devil when the narrator knew that Michael had never been religious. Later, a genealogical research firm the narrator had hired to find Yvette's family emails her, confirming that Yvette Mitchell had died in a V2 attack in 1944.