AustLit

'In the tradition of THE TATTOOIST OF AUSCHWITZ, a heartbreaking true story of love, loss and survival against all odds during the Second World war.

'Conscripted into the Polish army as Hitler’s ground and air forces are bearing down on his country, Jew Tolek Klings vows to return to his wife, Klara, and son, Juliusz. However, when the Luftwaffe’s bombs start falling and the Polish cause looks hopelessly lost, Tolek finds himself under fire from his supposed brothers in arms.  The Polish army is rife with anti-Semitism and he is relentlessly tormented. As the Germans cross the border, he is faced with a terrible dilemma: flee to protect his family – and risk being shot as a deserter – or ride out the war, hoping rumours of women and children being spared in the concentration camps are true.

'What follows is an odyssey that will take Tolek from a Hungarian internment camp, where his ability to type spares him from the frontline, on to Palestine, Beirut, Egypt, Tobruk and Italy. A broken telegram from Klara, ending with the haunting words, ‘We trouble’, pushes him to the brink.' (Publication summary)

'Pull the pin, hear the ping, silver ball bounce and ding… Abel Jackson Marvin is in a coma reliving the pinball game of his life – the bumps and ricochets of bushfire, family breakup, heroic rescues, disabling and fatal accidents, marriage, fatherhood – while a clock counts away the seconds of his life and a female voice urges him to give a full account of himself.

'Throughout Abel’s time-travels in his foggy stream-of consciousness are two constants: his granny’s tray of sweeties ‘to balance out life’s nasties’ and the other members of the ‘Pinnie Basement Gang’, his best friends George and Roma. Roma’s pinball mantra keeps interrupting that other female voice as she sends him spinning into another memory: the night she slipped in through the basement window dragging a bottle of vodka, and hypnotised him with her magical hands.

'As the 3D visions flash before his eyes, Abel must decide whether to keep the silver ball on the playfield, or let the ball drain away: game over.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'In the tradition of The Reader comes a powerful coming-of-age novel set in post-World War II Europe, Israel and Australia. At the hospital bed of his comatose uncle, Laibel Goldenstein recounts their family's extraordinary journey from war-torn Europe to the fledgling state of Israel and then on to Australia. It is a cathartic tale of new beginnings, both for the family and their adopted homes, and the reader is plunged headlong into exotic, startling environments. Fresh and vibrant, alternately joyous and heartbreaking, this is a story of loss, but also of moving forward and 'coming to terms with one's exile'. Written in an intensely visual and engaging episodic style, Dancing with the Hurricane goes fearlessly into Lily Brett territory and emerges not just unscathed but triumphant. This compelling story is loosely autobiographical but has all the benefits of fiction in developing themes and a stunning array of images: of memory, hope, dashed dreams, and achievement - not to mention popular music - as Laibel struggles with a past he has previously attempted to suppress. It's an insightful blend of the public and the personal, the historical and the contemporary. Stylistically and thematically challenging, topical and ambitious, it is a novel which reconciles the present with the past, providing fresh perspectives on resettlement, 20th-century history and the ongoing rift between secularism and fundamentalism.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.