Australian fiction to pick up this month
Women & Children by Tony Birch
It's 1965 and Joe Cluny is living in a working-class suburb with his mum, Marion, and sister, Ruby, spending his days trying to avoid trouble with the nuns at the local Catholic primary school. One evening his Aunty Oona appears on the doorstep, distressed and needing somewhere to stay. As his mum and aunty work out what to do, Joe comes to understand the secrets that the women in his family carry, including on their bodies. Yet their pleas for assistance are met with silence and complicity from all sides. Who will help Joe's family at their time of need?
Women & Children is a novel about the love and courage between two sisters, and a sudden loss of childhood innocence.
The In-Between by Christos Tsiolkas
No life is simple, and no life is without sorrow. No life is perfect.
Two middle-aged men meet on an internet date. Each has been scarred by a previous relationship; each has his own compelling reasons for giving up on the idea of finding love.
But still they both turn up for the dinner, feel the spark and the possibility of something more.
Feel the fear of failing again, of being hurt and humiliated and further annihilated by love.
How can they take the risk of falling in love again. How can they not?
The Conversion by Amanda Lohrey
Nick: so persuasive, ever the optimist, always on a quest to design the perfect environment, convinced it could heal a wounded soul. The conversion was Nick’s idea, but it’s Zoe who’s here now, in a valley of old coalmines and new vineyards, working out how to live in a deconsecrated church. What to do with all that vertical space, those oppressive stained-glass windows? Can a church become a home or, even with all its vestiges removed, will it remain forever what it was intended to be?
For Zoe, alone and troubled by a ghost from the recent past, the little church seems empty of the possibilities Nick enthused about. She is stuck in purgatory - until a determined young teacher pushes her way into Zoe’s life, convinced of her own peculiar mission for the building.
Days of Innocence and Wonder by Lucy Treloar
For all her life, Till, now twenty-three, has lived in the shadow of the abduction of a childhood friend, and her tormented half-wondering about whether she might have been able to stop it.
Finally, at the age of twenty-three, Till flees her past and the hovering presence of her fearful parents. In Wirowie, a town that's on its knees, she stops and slowly begins creating a new home, rebuilding an abandoned railway station.
But there is danger here too, and Till must ultimately decide whether she can turn from her fear-filled past and face down, even pursue, the darkness that suddenly looms so near - or whether she'll flee once more and never stop running.
The Paris Cooking School by Sophie Beaumont
There's nothing quite so beautiful as Paris in the spring; and when you add in the chance to learn the French way of food, in a relaxed and friendly atmosphere, who can resist? Not Gabi Picabea or Kate Evans who have come from Australia to Sylvie Morel's Paris Cooking School.
Both are at a crossroads, and learning to cook the French way in Paris, far away from all their troubles, seems like the perfect escape. Still bruised from a shocking betrayal by her ex-husband, Kate is trying to find a new place for herself in life, and emotional peace, while French-Australian artist Gabi is struggling with a crippling creative block.
Meanwhile, Sylvie is facing challenges of her own - a mysterious harassment campaign against the school and a reassessment of her relationship with her commitment-shy lover, Claude.
So Close to Home by Mick Cummins
Eighteen-year-old Aaron is charismatic, resourceful and addicted to heroin. His mum has kicked him out of home in a last-ditch move to help him get straight, and he wanders the streets of South Melbourne, living on his wits and sleeping rough - all the while chasing drugs, dreams and love.
Desperate to fund his addiction, Aaron climbs into the car of The Man, a distinguished elderly gentleman willing to pay for a certain kind of relationship. This regular cash could be the lifeline Aaron needs to start again, but The Man keeps raising spectres from Aaron's past that he'd rather forget. As Aaron gathers the courage to confront the events that derailed his life, his rage grows – and the consequences could be fatal.
