AustLit

'In Venice, the second of Nick Earls’ interconnected novellas, sculptor Natalie Landry explains her current project. Demonstrating with her hands the angles at which her family of figures relate to each other, she explores the difference in degrees between intimacy and indifference. ‘Aloof’ is the word she settles on: ‘“This one you're paying attention, avidly, to something close by.” She lifts her fingers so that they’re almost straight again. “Now it’s dead to you. It’s in the foreground but not a threat, not interesting. You’re all about the horizon, something out there”’ (Earls 2015: 36). This theme of family relationships—how we are angled towards or away from the people closest to us, what lies in the foreground of our lives and what is on the horizon—connects all of the stories in Wisdom Tree to create a compelling work that is more than the sum of its individual parts' (Introduction)