AustLit

'Danger. Imprisonment. Death. This is the fate in store for anyone who dares defy the German authorities during their occupation on the island of Jersey during World War II. Undeterred, Lucy Schwob ('Claude') and Suzanne Malherbe ('Marcel') embark upon a campaign of rebellion. By day, the two women present to the world as quiet, cat-loving sisters; in reality they are lovers and saboteurs, using surrealist-inspired artworks to undermine and destabilise a tyrannous regime's power in an environment where no one is to be trusted. Captured in 1944 and faced with the threat of execution or deportation to a concentration camp, Lucy and Suzanne must draw on all their reserves of courage, imagination and tenacity, as well as their deep love, to survive separation, starvation and their own faltering will to live. Bowed but never broken completely, they greet freedom with ambivalence, knowing the price which has been paid for it by so many. Set against a backdrop of surveillance and fear, told in gleaming evocative prose which brings the ever-changing oceanic landscape to life, Claude & Marcel is a story of bittersweet triumph by twinned spirits, the shadow to her light, the electron which dances with her proton, the one seed of a dicotyledon which nestles next to the other.' (Publication summary)

'‘I’ll tell you a story that’ll knock ya socks off,’ says an old woman in Janis Spehr’s ‘Little Sheilas’, one of the thirteen compelling stories which make up her fourth collection, Flowers for the Protestants. Many of the characters in these stories face a crisis or dilemma: a woman is torn by conflict about her partner’s pregnancy; a man kidnaps his daughter during an access visit; a couple mourn their dead son in numbing separateness; men are locked into denial about their sexuality. Some are strengthened by these challenges; others are defeated by them but all seek love, a sense of belonging and a place in the world. Most of the stories are located in a domesticated rural landscape which nevertheless retains a haunting, crooked beauty while some occur in an urban environment which enables women to forge new identities through work and love. The final story in the collection, ‘Portraits from the First Republic’, takes place in Europe between the world wars and signals a new direction in Janis Spehr’s writing. Melancholy and bleak; yearning and lyrical, shot through with flashes of sardonic wit, Flowers for the Protestants is short fiction writing at its finest.'    (Publication summary)

'Ladies, a plate please charts the life of Elizabeth Macguire, from childhood to middle age, in her quest for identity and selfhood. Activist, lover, sister, friend, Elizabeth follows her own rebellious star, beginning in rural sixties Australia in a family fractured by a child’s death and the damaging silence of unexpressed grief. Her journey takes her through youthful romances to a complex and volatile relationship with Sarah, who seeks to reconcile her own family history of loss in a way which inevitably conflicts with Elizabeth’s desire for autonomy. Wry, evocative and humorous, Ladies, a plate please is about struggle, change and the secrets people keep, from themselves and each other. '  (Publication summary)

'Rebellious teenager Phillip is sent to live with Kate, who raised him as a child when his mother Venice was in thrall to heroin. Set in coastal Victoria and then in Paris, Sea Pictures charts Phillip’s coming of age as well as Kate’s life in her local community and her relationship with the glamorous and volatile Venice.' (Publication summary)

'Janis Spehr is a traveller and dreamer. Landscape, history and the visual arts are important starting points for her writing and her short fiction has been widely published. She is currently writing a collection of stories, The light at the edge of the sky, based on the life of the German photographer Gisele Freund.' (Publication summary)