Review: Shirl by Wayne Marshall

A whimsical, absurd and transgressive collection of stories about Australian masculinity.

Review: There Was Still Love by Favel Parrett

A sweet and simple story about growing up in parallel worlds, Melbourne and Prague in 1980.

See What You Made Me Do goes beyond headlines to uncover the horrifying scale of domestic abuse in Australia.

A hilarious novel about mortality and ageing.

The Yield offers a generous and quietly radical vision of a possible Australia.

Here Until August is an intriguing collection of 10 short stories. They often feel haunted and uncanny.

The story of a father and daughter, both touched by crippling illness.

I can’t say I enjoyed this book very much – it’s full of domestic tragedy – but I was impressed by its intensely claustrophobic mood.

Whittaker’s poetic language is urgent but timeless, vernacular but formally rigorous, totally unique.

In 2019 I gravitated to stories of radical, political change (can you blame me?), and there seemed to be a surplus available.