Reviews: June 2012

Friday, 27 April 2012 Books+Publishing

Fiction

The Daughters of Mars (Tom Keneally, Vintage, June)
A sprawling saga, The Daughters of Mars is based on journals kept by Australian nursing sisters who laboured in claustrophobic hospital ships, casualty clearing stations and hospitals in Europe during the First World War. Sisters Naomi and Sally Durrance have their own reasons for volunteering, as do many of their newfound nursing friends, but they are tested beyond endurance as they try to save lives and ameliorate suffering in challenging, often hopeless conditions … read more

My Hundred Lovers (Susan Johnson, A&U, June)
You may know of Susan Johnson for her brave memoir of motherhood, A Better Woman, or her novel about writer Charmian Clift, The Broken Book, among other titles. Her seventh novel, My Hundred Lovers, opens with a woman in middle age who is feeling overpowered by memories. Passages about her relationships and human connections are interspersed with vignettes recalling the joy of different sensory experiences … read more

The Remnants (John Hughes, UWA Publishing, June)
What a challenging novel this is. Readers familiar with the author, via his prize-winning collection of autobiographical essays, The Idea of Home (2005), will know that he never chooses the easy option as a writer. The Remnants’ starting point is a manuscript written by an Australian art historian and discovered after his death by his son … read more

Winter Be My Shield (Jo Spurrier, HarperVoyager, June)
In the first book in her ‘Children of the Black Sun’ series, Jo Spurrier manages to avoid the traps that many debut fantasy novelists fall into. Her characters are credible, their actions are rational, and the villains are evil but not stupid. While this is a fairly standard fantasy for the most part, Spurrier has worked a few variations into the mix … read more

Nonfiction

The Kingdom and the Quarry: China, Australia, Fear and Greed (David Uren, Black Inc., June)
Australia’s relationship with China is at the forefront of public discourse yet it is portrayed in wildly different ways. On the one hand China is the foundation of our prosperity and on the other it is a threat to our very way of life. David Uren shows how the actions and policies of our business and political leaders have swung between these polar opinions … read more

The Lost Woman (Sydney Smith, Text, June)
Reviewing a memoir with this much disturbing content is challenging, but I highly recommend this book for the strength and courage of the author’s voice, and the beauty of her writing. It is poetic, complex and powerful, filled with the anxiety of a trapped daughter with an emotionally deadened, controlling and damaged mother … read more

Category: Features