AustLit

'The Patrick White literary award-winner’s latest book is poetic, sharply tuned and compelling – and ideal for the meandering uncertainties of 2020' 

'Amanda Lohrey might be described as a writer’s writer: proficient in short and long form fiction and a veteran of the essay. Her writing is the literature of ideas.' (Introduction)

'Across her seven novels, Amanda Lohrey has been interested in the role that reading plays in our lives. In her work, reading is always situated: we know where her characters read, how it shapes and is shaped by their circumstances. We follow 1950s Hobart communists from their reading groups to the docks to the courtroom. In a near-future Australia, characters read to find some guidance about how to act meaningfully in the face of political crisis. A woman’s reading of Jane Eyre in a dark Leichhardt terrace scaffolds her life and decisions. Another character reads Madame Bovary on a canal boat, freezing, miserable and surrounded by rowdy teenagers, and finds herself oddly reflected. A city man moves to the bush and reads travel writing about another land stolen, fought over and decimated.' (Introduction)

'Amanda Lohrey’s Miles Franklin-winnning novel explores notions of impermanence and healing in a small coastal town.'