Australian Fiction reviews
We Were Not Men by Campbell Mattinson
Campbell Mattinson’s first novel is likely to make a Boy Swallows Universe- sized splash in the Australian literary scene. Mattinson’s publisher has defied anyone to read the first 22 pages and then …
Pietà by Michael Fitzgerald
Michael Fitzgerald’s second novel, Pietà, introduces us to Lucy, a young art history student on a mission: she’s tasked by her recently deceased mother (a former nun in the 1970s) to deliver a myster…
One Hundred Days by Alice Pung
High up in the housing commission tower, headstrong 16-year-old Karuna lives alone with her mother. Karuna feels suffocated by her mother’s strict rules and overbearing protectiveness – ‘a girl who m…
Echolalia by Briohny Doyle
While Briohny Doyle’s second novel Echolalia is less overtly end-of-days than her first (The Island Will Sink), it still carries a sense of desolation that speaks to Doyle’s preoccupations with domes…
The Other Half of You by Michael Mohammed Ahmad
Michael Mohammed Ahmad is a force. His appearance on the ABC’s Q&A in 2018 is burnt into my brain. Never before had I witnessed such a scorching critique of racism in Australia on TV. While host Tony…
The Beautiful Fall by Hugh Breakey
Thrice now, 179 days apart each time, Robbie Penfold has lost his mind. He suffers from a form of amnesia which wipes his memory clean every six months. No one knows if it will happen again, but Robb…
Two-Week Wait: An I.V.F. Story by Luke C. Jackson, Kelly Jackson & Mara Wild
This graphic novel is a fictional story based on the real-life experience of Melbourne-based wife-and-husband writer team Kelly and Luke Jackson. The authors are in-vitro fertilisation veterans thems…
Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray by Anita Heiss
We need more of these stories; more novels that reflect Australia’s colonial past through the eyes of First Nations women. Anita Heiss, award-winning author and proud member of the Wiradjuri Nation o…
Gunk Baby by Jamie Marina Lau
When I first picked up Jamie Marina Lau’s debut, Pink Mountain on Locust Island, back in 2019, I was instantly intrigued by the sparsely filled pages and short-prose structure. It was captivating; al…
Unsheltered by Clare Moleta
In a landscape rent by an undefined climate catastrophe, societal breakdown and possible armed conflict, a network of refugee camps, settlements and supply stations house what remains of humankind. T…
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