AustLit logo

AustLit

image of person or book cover 6682052735250796515.jpg
Image courtesy of publisher's website.
y separately published work icon Gravity Well single work   novel  
Issue Details: First known date: 2017... 2017 Gravity Well
The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.

AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'Lotte is an astronomer who spends her nights peering into deep space rather than looking too closely at herself. When she returns to her hometown after years in South America, reeling from a devastating diagnosis, she finds that much has changed. Lotte’s father has remarried, and she feels like an outsider in the house she grew up in. She’s estranged from her former best friend, Eve, who is busy with her own life, and unsure of how to recover the closeness they once shared. Initially, Lotte's return causes disharmony, but then it is the catalyst for a much more devastating event — an event that will change Lotte and Eve's lives forever.

'If families are like solar systems — bodies that orbit in time with one another, sometimes close and sometimes far away — what is the force that drives them? And what are the consequences when the weight of one planet tugs others off course?

'The long-awaited second novel from the award-winning Melanie Joosten, Gravity Well is a striking and tender tale of friendship and family: both the family we are born to, and the family we choose. Deeply compassionate and profoundly moving, it is a heartrending portrait of how we rebuild when the worst has happened.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • Brunswick, Brunswick - Coburg area, Melbourne - North, Melbourne, Victoria,: Scribe , 2017 .
      image of person or book cover 6682052735250796515.jpg
      Image courtesy of publisher's website.
      Extent: 288p.
      Note/s:
      • Published: 29th May 2017

      ISBN: 9781925322057
    • London,
      c
      England,
      c
      c
      United Kingdom (UK),
      c
      Western Europe, Europe,
      :
      Scribe ,
      2018 .
      image of person or book cover 189850465073109432.jpg
      Image courtesy of publisher's website.
      Extent: 281p.
      Note/s:
      • Published 10 May 2018

      ISBN: 9781911617297

Works about this Work

y separately published work icon Gravity Well by Melanie Joosten Jessica Zibung , Melbourne : CAE Book Group , 2019 16682008 2019 single work criticism
Relationship Dynamics Out of This World Gretchen Shirm , 2017 single work essay
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 20 May 2017; (p. 18)
'In Gravity Well, Melanie Joosten has traded the claustrophobic setting of her 2011 debut Berlin Syndrome for a kaleidoscopic structure, examining the simultaneous push-pull influence of ­intimate relationships on the individuals who inhabit them.' (Introduction)
Melanie Joosten : Gravity Well CR , 2017 single work essay
— Appears in: The Saturday Paper , 10-16 June 2017;
'Gravity Well is about Lotte and Eve, two intelligent women who start out as friends and whose relationship, over time, develops into something harsher, deeper and odder, as they both swerve between a number of diverging plans and desires. It’s only the second novel by Melanie Joosten, whose Berlin Syndrome was recently adapted into a film, but it achieves a textured and realistic quality that for some writers takes a lifetime.' (Introduction)
'Gravity Well' by Melanie Joosten Naama Grey-Smith , 2017 single work essay
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , June-July no. 392 2017;
'Gravity Well opens with Carl Sagan’s famous ‘mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam’ quote, suggesting themes of astronomy, loneliness, and humanity’s cosmic insignificance. Though I was immediately smitten with the cover design (a nebula-coloured orb, its top and bottom halves depicting mirrored but not identical female silhouettes amid a sea of cosmic black), I worried that the novel might overdo the astronomy analogies. Yet it soon became apparent that Melanie Joosten’s writing is as subtle as it is intelligent. The astral references are frequent but add interest and depth. All appear well-researched, and many – such as the Voyager Golden Records – sent me googling for more.' (Introduction)
'Gravity Well' by Melanie Joosten Naama Grey-Smith , 2017 single work essay
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , June-July no. 392 2017;
'Gravity Well opens with Carl Sagan’s famous ‘mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam’ quote, suggesting themes of astronomy, loneliness, and humanity’s cosmic insignificance. Though I was immediately smitten with the cover design (a nebula-coloured orb, its top and bottom halves depicting mirrored but not identical female silhouettes amid a sea of cosmic black), I worried that the novel might overdo the astronomy analogies. Yet it soon became apparent that Melanie Joosten’s writing is as subtle as it is intelligent. The astral references are frequent but add interest and depth. All appear well-researched, and many – such as the Voyager Golden Records – sent me googling for more.' (Introduction)
Melanie Joosten : Gravity Well CR , 2017 single work essay
— Appears in: The Saturday Paper , 10-16 June 2017;
'Gravity Well is about Lotte and Eve, two intelligent women who start out as friends and whose relationship, over time, develops into something harsher, deeper and odder, as they both swerve between a number of diverging plans and desires. It’s only the second novel by Melanie Joosten, whose Berlin Syndrome was recently adapted into a film, but it achieves a textured and realistic quality that for some writers takes a lifetime.' (Introduction)
Relationship Dynamics Out of This World Gretchen Shirm , 2017 single work essay
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 20 May 2017; (p. 18)
'In Gravity Well, Melanie Joosten has traded the claustrophobic setting of her 2011 debut Berlin Syndrome for a kaleidoscopic structure, examining the simultaneous push-pull influence of ­intimate relationships on the individuals who inhabit them.' (Introduction)
y separately published work icon Gravity Well by Melanie Joosten Jessica Zibung , Melbourne : CAE Book Group , 2019 16682008 2019 single work criticism
Last amended 26 Nov 2018 13:25:51
Newspapers:
    Powered by Trove
    X