This Devastating Fever (Sophie Cunningham, Ultimo)

Alice Fox has been struggling for years with her novel. Her agent, Sarah, has misgivings. Does anyone really want to read about Virginia Woolf’s husband, Leonard Woolf? Alice claims that he was once a rock star of the colonial era. What Sarah wants to know is: will the novel sell? But Alice doggedly continues on with her project, researching in English libraries and travelling to Sri Lanka where Leonard was once a colonial administrator in then-Ceylon. This Devastating Fever interweaves two timelines. Alice, between 2004 and 2021, and Leonard, between 1904 and his death in 1969. Alice’s world is consumed with climate change, bushfires and, in 2020, a global pandemic. Leonard’s professional life starts in Ceylon. On one year’s leave in 1911 he meets Virginia Stephen and marries her the following year. While his famous wife is better remembered, Leonard was also a prolific writer. A novel about writing a novel seems like a recipe for disaster, yet Sophie Cunningham has pulled off something genuinely moving. Through Alice’s irrational determination to write her novel and her self-deprecatory wit, we enter into the heart of one of the 20th century’s most famous and famously complicated marriages. Deeply humane, full of humour, and delightfully gossipy about the sex lives of the Bloomsbury Group, This Devastating Fever is innovative in format, chatty in tone and will seduce readers with its simple, direct voice.

Chris Saliba is the co-owner of North Melbourne Books. Read his interview with Sophie Cunningham about This Devastating Fever here.

Category: Reviews