AustLit

'There’s a particular joy when you come across a novel which doesn’t fit neatly into one genre category or another, a novel which is unashamedly its own creature, which plucks up disparate threads from multiple stories and knits them into a compelling narrative.'  (Introduction)

'Chaucer’s most famous work, The Canterbury Tales, is a series of poems in Middle English in which 31 pilgrims wending their way to the shrine of Thomas Beckett in Canterbury each tell a tale to pass the time. One of the group is a Wife and hers is a lust-filled, boastful tale of her five marriages.' (Introduction)

'This is the story of two brilliant boys. Maxie Chester, who drowned in a deep ditch negligently left unfenced by Waverley Council and whose mother was traumatised by seeing his dead body brought to the surface. The other is Bert Evatt, genius son of a Maitland publican, who took all the honours the University of Sydney could bestow, became at 35 Australia’s youngest ever High Court judge and went on, at the end of the war, to help change the world. In 1939, Maxie’s miserable death intersected with “the Doc’s” intellectual power and compassion: his groundbreaking judgment opened the door to compensate all foreseeable victims of corporate carelessness.' (Introduction)