New Australian Fiction shortlist spotlight: Echolalia by Briohny Doyle

Echolalia is one of the six books shortlisted for this year’s Readings New Australian Fiction Prize. This moving, unflinching novel tells the story of a mother who must go on living after one moment of irretrievable darkness changes everything.

Our 2021 judges describe Doyle’s work as ‘heartbreaking from the very beginning, this beautiful, nightmarish, fearless story grips you and will not let you go’. Staff reviewer, Bec Kavanagh, also says of the novel:Echolalia is written like a compelling domestic thriller but acts as an unsparing indictment on the lack of support provided to women experiencing trauma, post-natal depression and psychosis.’ You can read the full review here.

We asked author Briohny Doyle about writing inspiration, advice and what she hopes readers may take away from her book.


What was the initial inspiration for this story?

Echolalia was inspired by a number of things. I read a news story about an infanticide in my home town and could not stop asking myself why this woman had been so unsupported and isolated in caring for her three children under five years old. So this question is at the centre of the work, but so is the town of Shorehaven, which isn’t a city or a quaint small town but a regional centre. The kind of place we don’t read about that often, but most of us know.

I had the idea to write a family drama, which shows how ‘family’ itself can be a story privileging certain identities and practises; a story built on exploitation, exclusion and violence. I was also reacting to the recent mass of popular domestic thrillers which cast the monster out of the family to restore order. Echolalia asks, if there were order to restore, who should desire it? To what end and at whose expense?


What do you hope readers will take away from your book?

A destabilised or troubled understanding of some of the political, economic and social underpinnings of our truth claims about ‘Australia’, what a good life constitutes, and what it costs. Also, the sometimes less-than-comfortable experience of deep empathy for characters it’s hard to like.


What has been the best writing advice you’ve received?

You have to take the in breath before the out breath.


You can read more about the 2021 Readings New Fiction Prize shortlist here. We’ll be announcing the winner during the month of November.

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Cover image for Echolalia: Longlisted for the 2022 Miles Franklin Award

Echolalia: Longlisted for the 2022 Miles Franklin Award

Briohny Doyle

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