Melbourne in fiction
As a UNESCO City of Literature, Melbourne Naarm has a proud history when it comes to literary endeavours. It houses Australia's oldest public library, State Library Victoria; The Wheeler Centre, a vibrant hub for a diverse range of organisations focused on literature and ideas; was home to Cole's Book Arcade, the world's largest bookshop of its time; and of course Readings (and numerous other bookshops) has also played an important role over more than five decades, and counting. It therefore makes perfect sense that Melbourne's esteemed authors have featured this wonderful city in their novels. From share houses and friendship to crime and the art scene, below is a selection of fiction which captures the essence of Melbourne life!
🎓 Student/University Life
Theory & Practice by Michelle de Kretser
It's 1986, and 'beautiful, radical ideas' are in the air. A young woman arrives in Melbourne to research the novels of Virginia Woolf. In bohemian St Kilda she meets artists, activists, students – and Kit. He claims to be in a 'deconstructed' relationship, and they become lovers. Meanwhile, her work on the Woolfmother falls into disarray.
Theory & Practice is a mesmerising account of desire and jealousy, truth and shame. It makes and unmakes fiction as we read, expanding our notion of what a novel can contain.
Read our staff review here.
Monkey Grip by Helen Garner
Helen Garner’s gritty, lyrical first novel divided the critics on its publication in 1977. Today, Monkey Grip is regarded as a masterpiece – the novel that shines a light on a time and a place and a way of living never before presented in Australian literature: communal households, music, friendships, children, love, drugs, and sex.
When Nora falls in love with Javo, she is caught in the web of his addiction; and as he moves between loving her and leaving, between his need for her and promises broken, Nora’s life becomes an intense dance of loving and trying to let go.
⭐ Also try First Year by Kristina Ross
🏺 History
Cherrywood by Jock Serong
Edinburgh, 1916: Thomas Wrenfether, a rich Scottish industrialist, is offered the opportunity to take on a startling project – to build a paddle steamer from European cherrywood on the other side of the world, in booming Melbourne, Australia. But nothing goes according to plan.
Melbourne, 1993. Martha is a lonely, frustrated lawyer. One night on impulse she stops at a strange pub in Fitzroy, The Cherrywood, for a bottle of wine. The building and its inhabitants make an indelible impression, and she slowly begins to deduce odd truths about the pub.
Read our staff review here.
Nine Days by Toni Jordan
It is 1939 and although Australia is about to go to war, it doesn’t quite realise yet that the situation is serious. Deep in the working-class Melbourne suburb of Richmond it is business - your own and everyone else’s – as usual. And young Kip Westaway, failed scholar and stablehand, is living the most important day of his life.
Kip’s momentous day is one of nine that will set the course for each member of the Westaway clan in the years that follow. Kip’s mother, his brother Francis and, eventually, Kip’s wife Annabel and their daughters and grandson: all find their own turning points, their triumphs and catastrophes, in days to come. But at the heart of all their stories is Kip, and at the centre of Kip’s fifteen-year-old heart is his adored sister Connie. They hold the threads that will weave a family.
Read our staff review here.
⭐ Also try Women & Children by Tony Birch or Murder in Punch Lane by Jane Sullivan
🎨 The Art Scene
Woo Woo by Ella Baxter
Sabine is having a moment. Her new exhibition, Fuck You, Help Me, is opening soon and, as her gallerist says, 'Hell is an artist three days before their exhibition opens.' But it's not only this coming milestone that is causing Sabine to melt down.
She is being stalked. As exhibition day draws closer, so too does the man who has been watching her. As his approaches become more overt and threatening, Sabine's fear amplifies and transforms into something feral and primal. And then things start to get really strange.
Read our staff review here.
Cairo by Chris Womersley
Frustrated by country life and eager for adventure and excitement, seventeen-year-old Tom Button moves to the city to study. Once there, and living in a run-down apartment block called Cairo, he is befriended by the eccentric musician Max Cheever, his beautiful wife Sally, and their close-knit circle of painters and poets.
As Tom falls under the sway of his charismatic older friends, he enters a bohemian world of parties and gallery openings. Soon, however, he is caught up in more sinister events involving deception and betrayal, not to mention one of the greatest unsolved art heists of the twentieth century: the infamous theft of Picasso’s Weeping Woman.
Read our staff review here.
The Strays by Emily Bitto
Evan Trentham is the wild child of the Melbourne art world of the 1930s. He and his wife, Helena, attempt to carve out their own small niche, to escape the conservatism they see around them, by gathering together other like-minded artists. They create a utopian circle within their family home, offering these young artists a place to live and work, and the mixed benefits of being associated with the infamous Evan.
At the periphery of this circle is Lily Struthers, the best friend of Evan and Helena’s daughter Eva. Lily is infatuated by the world she bears witness to, and longs to be part of this enthralling makeshift family. As Lily observes years later, the story of this groundbreaking circle involved the same themes as Evan Trentham’s art: Faustian bargains and terrible recompense; spectacular fortunes and falls from grace. Yet it was not Evan, nor the other artists he gathered around him, but his own daughters, who paid the debt that was owing.
Read our staff review here.
⭐ Also try Bad Art Mother by Edwina Preston
🏠 The Suburbs
No Church in the Wild by Murray Middleton
It's been five long years since violence erupted between young migrants and local police in Melbourne's inner west. A police-led trip to hike the Kokoda Trail hopes to rebuild relationships in the community, but as training gets underway, fresh allegations of racial profiling have everyone on a knife-edge.
For wannabe rapper Ali, pride is hard to come by in the commission towers as both gentrification and his best friend's court date creep closer. Classmate Tyler's anger – at his dysfunctional family, and a world that denies his dreams – is close to ignition, and the way out is dangerously narrow. Young and idealistic teacher Anna's life is in disarray, but she knows she has to take a stand against the school system that's failing her students. And Paul, a cop new to the beat, quickly realises that it'll take a lot more than community policing to repair the mutual mistrust with local youth.
Read our staff review here.
Shadowboxing by Tony Birch
Shadowboxing is a collection of ten linked stories in the life of a boy growing up in the inner-Melbourne suburb of Fitzroy in the 1960s. A beautifully rendered time capsule, it captures a period of decay, turmoil and change through innocent, unblinking eyes.
Michael’s family, led by his long-suffering mother, live as though under siege, surviving his father’s drinking and rage as well as the forces of ‘urban renewal’. Their neighbourhood is a world of simple pleasures as well as random brutality; of family life and love as well as violence and tragedy. As Michael experiences all this with a combination of wonder and fear, he matures into a sensitive adult who can forgive but never forget.
⭐ Also try Death in Brunswick by Boyd Oxlade or Black Rock White City by A.S. Patrić
🔍 Crime
The Hitwoman's Guide to Reducing Household Debt by Mark Mupotsa-Russell
Olivia Hodges used to do horrible things – back when she worked for a Spanish crime syndicate – but she fled that life and moved home to Australia, building a family in the hippie, hipster community of the Dandenong Ranges.
When a small-time criminal gang brings tragedy to her family, superstitious Olivia believes it's the universe demanding payment for her crimes. She wants revenge, but has to get it without adding to her karmic debt. So she creates situations where these bad men get themselves killed through their anger, ego and greed – all while trying to mislead the cops long enough to finish what she started.
Read our staff review here.
Bad Debts (Jack Irish, Book 1) by Peter Temple
Melbourne in winter. Rain. Wind. Pubs. Beer. Sex. Corruption. Murder.
A phone message from ex-client Danny McKillop doesn’t ring any bells for Jack Irish. Life is hard enough without having to dredge up old problems: his beloved football team continues to lose, the odds on his latest plunge at the track seem far too long and he’s still cooking for one.
But then Danny turns up dead and Jack has to take a walk back into the dark and dangerous past.
⭐ Also try: Cocaine Blues by Kerry Greenwood or Truth by Peter Temple
💛 Family and Friendships
Room for a Stranger by Melanie Cheng
Since her sister died, Meg has been on her own. She doesn’t mind, not really – not with Atticus, her African grey parrot, to keep her company – but after her house is broken into by a knife-wielding intruder, she decides it might be good to have some company after all.
Andy’s father has lost his job, and his parents’ savings are barely enough to cover his tuition. If he wants to graduate, he’ll have to give up his student flat and find a homeshare. Living with an elderly Australian woman is harder than he’d expected, though, and soon he’s struggling with more than his studies.
The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas
At a suburban barbecue, a man slaps a child who is not his own. This event has a shocking ricochet effect on a group of people, mostly friends, who are directly or indirectly influenced by the event. In this remarkable novel, Christos Tsiolkas turns his unflinching and all-seeing eye on to that which connects us all: the modern family and domestic life in the twenty-first century.
The Slap is told from the points of view of eight people who were present at the barbecue. The slap and its consequences force them all to question their own families and the way they live, their expectations, beliefs and desires. What unfolds is a powerful, haunting novel about love, sex and marriage, parenting and children, and the fury and intensity – all the passions and conflicting beliefs – that family can arouse.
The Opposite of Success by Eleanor Elliott Thomas
Council employee Lorrie Hope has a great partner, two adorable kids and absolutely no idea what to do with her life. This Friday, she's hoping for change: it's launch day for her big work project, and she's applied for a promotion she's not entirely sure she wants. Meanwhile, her best friend, Alex, is stuck in a mess involving Lorrie's rakish ex, Ruben-or, more accurately, his wife. Oh, and Ruben's boss happens to be the mining magnate Sebastian Glup, who is sponsoring Lorrie's project...
As the day spirals from bad to worse to frankly unhinged, Lorrie and Alex must reconsider what they can expect from life, love and middle management. The Opposite of Success is a riotously funny debut novel about work, motherhood, friendship – and the meaning of failure itself.
Read our staff review here.
⭐ Also try Almost a Mirror by Kristen Krauth, Body Friend by Katherine Brabon, The Glad Shout by Alice Robinson, The Adversary by Ronnie Scott, Small Joys of Real Life by Allee Richards or Our Magic Hour by Jennifer Down
📜 Poetry
if this is the end by Bebe Oliver
A fearless and honest exploration of queer First Nations identity, and a vibrant celebration of imperfection and personal growth, if this is the end is a stunning exploration of what it means to work through childhood trauma and love yourself in the present.
In a state of post-pandemic recovery, the author travels back to his hometown and grapples with all that comes with it, experiences the thrills of relationship drama and serious queer romance, works through his mental health issues and writes a love letter to Naarm from the perspective of a Kimberley man.
The Cyprian by Amy Crutchfield
From poems of desire and sexual longing to poems of love in the face of death, The Cyprian explores the joy and heartbreak love weaves into our lives. The collection confronts some of our primary questions about love: how is it possible to accept the death of the beloved? What role does deception play in love? When does love become a force of exploitation? The collection is composed of five parts, reflecting the different aspects of Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty — a complexity which is also implicit in the ambiguity of the book’s title, ‘the Cyprian’.
