Australian fiction
Black Rock White City by A.S. Patric
Serbian academics, poet Jovan and teacher Suzana, have fled the Bosnian war. Reeling from the loss of their children, they attempt to start over in bayside Melbourne. Beneath the banality of the suburbs and the apparent ‘fully functional moral economy’…
A Short History of Richard Kline by Amanda Lohrey
Plagued by a niggling sense of lack since childhood, Richard Kline approaches middle age struggling to suppress his growing anger. While marriage, fatherhood and career provide glimpses of happiness, the talented software engineer is never wholly satisfied with life, descending…
The Ash Burner by Kári Gíslason
The Ash Burner is Kári Gíslason’s first novel. Midway through the book, a character, on the eve of his departure from his hometown, insists that his best friend Ted write him letters. ‘He thought you could say a lot more…
Anchor Point by Alice Robinson
Anchor Point is a promising debut novel because of the quality of its young author’s writing. Alice Robinson is a local creative writing teacher, and her writing is lyrical and seamless. The story is set in the Australian bush and…
Down To The River by S.J. Finn
Small, independent publishers exist to push boundaries and bring to light books that mainstream companies might consider too risky to publish. Down To the River is the second novel by S.J. Finn from Sleepers Publishing and it takes on the…
Skin by Ilka Tampke
Ailia is moments old when she is left on Cookmother’s doorstep in Caer Cad, on the eve of the Beltane festival. With no knowledge of her family, she is never called to skin, and so she is only half-born; a…
Hot Little Hands by Abigail Ulman
The characters in Abigail Ulman’s debut collection of short stories, Hot Little Hands, all float on the spectrum between youth and adulthood. These teenagers and 20-somethings are trying to figure out how to grow up –they’re confused, funny and…
A Man Made Entirely of Bats by Patrick Lenton
The debut collection by writer, playwright and possible mad scientist Patrick Lenton pulls apart icons of 21st-century pop culture and reassembles them in an ungodly mixture of satire, fan fiction, noir, schlock horror and absurdist humour. In these tiny stories…
The Anchoress by Robyn Cadwallader
Set in England in 1255, The Anchoress follows the plight of Sarah, a seventeen-year-old who chooses to become an anchoress – a holy woman – and spend her life locked in a small cell to the side of a church…
Trio by Geraldine Wooller
West Australian author Geraldine Wooller’s fourth novel explores the depths and limitations of ‘that fragile thing’, friendship. Spanning five decades, from late 60s London, early 80s Calabria to post millennium Perth, Trio charts the peaks and troughs of, ‘a dodgy…
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