Love And Desire Four Modern Australian Novellas

The power and range of the novella form is exemplified in this stunning collection which showcases four exciting new voices. The first three stories, selected by Cate Kennedy, take us into the inner world of three memorable characters as they grapple with love and desire. Paddy O'Reilly's Deep Water offers us scenes from an inner life that is tenaciously trying to cling to the familiar. In Christopher Currie's Dearly Departed we're privy to the inner monologue of the hapless Lenard Wenn, blindsided with a broken heart. Ellen Rodger, in The Girls' Room, achieves a vividly different atmosphere, where the grinding reality of work in a massage parlous is relieved with small glimpses of a hopeful relationship forming elsewhere. The fourth novella, China, by Margaret Innes, is the winning story in the Meanjin/ Readings novella competition. China has - in the words of the judges - "polish, poise and clean narrative lines, deft characterisation and sureness of voice". The Five Mile Press is proud to include it in this vibrant anthology.