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The Age
14-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Age
Wry humour, an underdog tale and banned novels: 10 new books
This week's book reviews traverse the genres, from a First Nations romcom to a dystopian vision, a guide to having an open marriage, a history of Scandinavia (those last two are not related) and some radical second-wave feminism. FICTION PICK OF THE WEEK The Sun Was Electric Light Rachel Morton UQP, $34.99 Rachel Morton's The Sun Was Electric Light won the Victorian Premier's Literary Award for an unpublished manuscript, and it's easy to see why. The deceptive austerity of Morton's writing rewards the reader with a richness of thought and feeling. The novel probes belonging and authenticity in the face of disillusionment, and follows Ruth – a New Yorker who decamps to a small lake town in Guatemala, where she had been happy many years before. Ruth strikes up two relationships with different women – the pragmatic, emotionally reserved Emilie becomes her lover, while the unreliable, intense and precarious Carmen provokes a fascination, and a sense of caring, that goes deeper than the erotic. The Sun Was Electric Light achieves unexpected profundity through condensation and contradiction. Ruth's musings – largely riven by futility and doubt – eschew obvious epiphany in favour of something like negative theology. Fleeting insights into belonging are often signalled through a poetic appreciation of its opposite, and wry humour ripples through the narrator's familiar, yet strikingly particular and perverse trains of thought. Commercial fiction from First Nations authors isn't entirely novel – there's been some deadly talent in the YA and Oz Gothic genres in recent years – though it does lag the literary world in attracting widespread attention. In Red Dust Running, Wiradjuri author Anita Heiss has produced an Indigenous romcom that should have broad appeal. Annabelle is a curator at a city gallery with a passion for art and activism – a passion that seems less complicated than her love life, which is still recovering from disaster. Luckily, her close bond with her tiddas – besties CJ and MJ and Angel – keeps her real, even when her heart leads her astray. When a smouldering attraction to Dusty, a smoking hot cowboy Annabelle meets at a rodeo, results in romance, Annabelle is the last to see what everyone else in her life intuits immediately – they don't have much in common. Will it last? Or will her friendship with a neighbour, Michael, kindle into something more than a slow burn? Red Dust Running is a relaxing read, but perhaps with too predictable an arc. The female characters are especially lively and warmly drawn, though the plot needs a few twists, and more humour, to make the com as good as the rom. Sea Change Jenny Pattrick Bateman Books, $37.99 A community of underdogs takes a stand against the conniving corporate baddie in Jenny Pattrick's Sea Change, set in a small coastal town on the South Island of Aotearoa-New Zealand. Disaster strikes when a massive earthquake triggers a tsunami, devastating the town. The survivors are being compelled to relocate by government fiat, but some defy the order and seek to rebuild, knowing that the government's decision has been manipulated by a property developer, Adrian Stokes, who wants to buy the whole place for a song and build a resort. The motley collection of holdouts includes the elderly Lorna, her blind neighbour Toddy, and Eru, a traumatised boy from a troubled home, and the plucky residents soon rustle up the know-how – from electricians to doctors – to revive and sustain their community without outside support. A bestselling author in her homeland, Pattrick's latest novel is a rather formulaic and unsubtle tale of good versus evil, but her characters are a diverse and charming bunch, and the survival story should appeal to the Australian love of the underdog too. Saturation William Lane Transit Lounge, $32.99 This dystopian novel from William Lane is set in a world where birth rates have plummeted after an enigmatic and unrevealed catastrophe, although ecocide and overpopulation seem to have played a role. Ursula and Ambrose are librarians. They're trying for a baby – a rare sight in a world hostile not only to children, but to the past these aspiring parents seek to preserve through books. A sinister entity named Yoremind directs and informs the populace, encouraging them to witness or participate in acts of brutality and dehumanisation. When a fascist demagogue seeks dictatorial powers, the persecution of librarians and the burning of books begins. Will Ursula and Ambrose survive? Lane writes risky fiction, and although Saturation builds sinister atmospherics, neither world-building nor social critique feel sharp enough to emerge from the shadow of influential fiction that has gone before. It's unfortunate, as current trends in the dance between society and technology – from the rise of AI and social media to the climate crisis and the psychological impact of information overload – are begging for incisive, dark sci-fi treatment. Called by police to discuss his sister's suicide nine years earlier, introverted public servant James Harper is compelled to reveal that he was abused by his stepfather. It's 1999, and the 27-year-old is busy losing himself in the adrenaline of competitive bike racing (moderated by hanging with stoner mates and playing video games). Revisiting the past is the last thing he wants or expects, but as coming-of-age story merges with crime drama, James finds himself drawn to discover whether his own experience and his sister's death were related, and to seek justice for what he has suffered. The grim legacy of child sexual abuse and the shortcomings of the legal system in addressing it have become painfully clear this century, and Daniel Oakman puts readers in the shoes of a victim-survivor navigating the hard road to restitution, while trying to avoid being retraumatised. Stylistically and structurally, this debut novel has flaws – from jagged pacing to overuse of the first-person pronoun at the start of sentences – though Oakman's portrait of growing up in the 1990s can be vivid. NON-FICTION PICK OF THE WEEK Inconvenient Women: Australian Radical Writers 1900-1970 Jacqueline Kent NewSouth, $34.99 When New Zealand born Jean Devanny published her debut novel in 1926 about a woman having an extra-marital affair, she was reviled as 'disgusting, indecent and communistic'. The book went on to be Australia's first banned novel. Not bad for a first go! She's just one of the formidable figures in this study of the women writers who prepared the ground for the second-wave feminism of the 1970s. Some are not so well known now, but it's also a glittering gallery that includes Miles Franklin, Eleanor Dark, Christina Stead and so many more. They were resolute and brave – not just in what they wrote but how they lived and loved, as in Lesbia Harford's concentrated 36 years. They were also defined by generally radical political views, usually Marxist and varying shades of socialist. Highly informed, engaging, often wittily observed, this is also an impressively orchestrated study of groundbreaking writers and the tumultuous times they mirrored and interpreted. The Next Day Melinda French Gates Macmillan, $36.99 Melinda French Gates acknowledges at the start of this combination of memoir and meditation that she's had a privileged life, but she's also taken in a number of life's lessons. The key to her thinking is recognising that transitions in life are precisely that: both end and beginning, closure and opening. In seven chapters she covers such things as landing extremely supportive parents – while also learning that nobody is a perfect parent. As much as she might have aspired to perfection when she first gave birth, in that transition period between being what she was and becoming a mother, she learnt to let go of the self-imposed shame of being a working mother and being a 'good enough' parent instead. The writing is especially strong when addressing her decision to leave her husband, Bill Gates. Here she incorporates the importance of Zen teachings, mindfulness and learning to listen to the inner voice of the authentic self. There are times when the philosophising can veer on the side of a motivational speech, but, overall, it's a poised reflection on her first 60 years. There are times when this memoir, charting the author's path to an open marriage, reads like a first-person novel. Deepa Paul, a TV scriptwriter among other things, looks back on her Catholic youth in Manila with detached irony, describing how she met her husband, moved to Singapore and then Amsterdam, where they still live with their daughter. In the liberating atmosphere of Amsterdam, she realised she wanted more than the traditional marriage and experimented with online dating in secret, was found out, and over a lengthy period of time, at one point consulting a therapist, renegotiated the marriage. After various affairs (which she details, sometimes displaying a strange naivety, along with a combination of strength and fragility), she now describes herself as polyamorous, having both a husband and a lover. As well as being a mother. In writing that is vivid, sad and funny, she takes the reader into the world she and her husband have created, answering all sorts of questions with engaging, candid openness. The Shortest History of Scandinavia Mart Kuldkepp Black Inc, $35 Mart Kuldkepp's bracing short history of Scandinavia – the region being comprised of not just Sweden, Norway and Denmark, but Finland and Iceland as well – is an admirably condensed study. Naturally, the Vikings – who for most of the time were farmers and peaceful traders, until business got difficult and the swords came out – loom large. But it also charts the rise and fall of absolutism, regional wars, the conversion of the pagans to Christianity and the emergence of the modern welfare states Scandinavia is synonymous with, along with populations that are often referred to as the happiest in the world. It is, after all, the region that gave us ABBA and Hans Christian Andersen. But there's also a Nordic-noir dark side to the story, especially some dubious wartime alliances and misplaced ideas about eugenics resulting in forced sterilisations (an estimated 30,000) which went on into the 1970s. Popular, accessible history by a Nordic specialist. It was German philosopher Martin Heidegger who, more or less, first spoke of authentic and inauthentic living in his 1927 book Being and Time – later taken up by Sartre. But I doubt either of them could have envisaged the emergence of these terms in many of today's popular guidebooks to better living. Motivational speaker Sheila Vijeyarasa, for example, urges her readers to be brave in embracing change when embarking on what she calls their 'journey to a more authentic life'. It's a journey that involves a series of crucial steps, often small ones, which are all detailed in her 'roadmap guide through this dance with change'. She not only draws on her own story, the 'miracle' of her IVF baby (filmed for TV), but also the stories of her clients. Incorporating ways of dealing with, for example, shame (in cases that involve divorce and separation), as well as the importance of self-love and being open to life's possibilities, she is by turns realistic and thoughtful, sometimes with a telling image, but there's also a certain pervasive happy-clappy positivity that you either go with or don't.
Sydney Morning Herald
14-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
Wry humour, an underdog tale and banned novels: 10 new books
This week's book reviews traverse the genres, from a First Nations romcom to a dystopian vision, a guide to having an open marriage, a history of Scandinavia (those last two are not related) and some radical second-wave feminism. FICTION PICK OF THE WEEK The Sun Was Electric Light Rachel Morton UQP, $34.99 Rachel Morton's The Sun Was Electric Light won the Victorian Premier's Literary Award for an unpublished manuscript, and it's easy to see why. The deceptive austerity of Morton's writing rewards the reader with a richness of thought and feeling. The novel probes belonging and authenticity in the face of disillusionment, and follows Ruth – a New Yorker who decamps to a small lake town in Guatemala, where she had been happy many years before. Ruth strikes up two relationships with different women – the pragmatic, emotionally reserved Emilie becomes her lover, while the unreliable, intense and precarious Carmen provokes a fascination, and a sense of caring, that goes deeper than the erotic. The Sun Was Electric Light achieves unexpected profundity through condensation and contradiction. Ruth's musings – largely riven by futility and doubt – eschew obvious epiphany in favour of something like negative theology. Fleeting insights into belonging are often signalled through a poetic appreciation of its opposite, and wry humour ripples through the narrator's familiar, yet strikingly particular and perverse trains of thought. Commercial fiction from First Nations authors isn't entirely novel – there's been some deadly talent in the YA and Oz Gothic genres in recent years – though it does lag the literary world in attracting widespread attention. In Red Dust Running, Wiradjuri author Anita Heiss has produced an Indigenous romcom that should have broad appeal. Annabelle is a curator at a city gallery with a passion for art and activism – a passion that seems less complicated than her love life, which is still recovering from disaster. Luckily, her close bond with her tiddas – besties CJ and MJ and Angel – keeps her real, even when her heart leads her astray. When a smouldering attraction to Dusty, a smoking hot cowboy Annabelle meets at a rodeo, results in romance, Annabelle is the last to see what everyone else in her life intuits immediately – they don't have much in common. Will it last? Or will her friendship with a neighbour, Michael, kindle into something more than a slow burn? Red Dust Running is a relaxing read, but perhaps with too predictable an arc. The female characters are especially lively and warmly drawn, though the plot needs a few twists, and more humour, to make the com as good as the rom. Sea Change Jenny Pattrick Bateman Books, $37.99 A community of underdogs takes a stand against the conniving corporate baddie in Jenny Pattrick's Sea Change, set in a small coastal town on the South Island of Aotearoa-New Zealand. Disaster strikes when a massive earthquake triggers a tsunami, devastating the town. The survivors are being compelled to relocate by government fiat, but some defy the order and seek to rebuild, knowing that the government's decision has been manipulated by a property developer, Adrian Stokes, who wants to buy the whole place for a song and build a resort. The motley collection of holdouts includes the elderly Lorna, her blind neighbour Toddy, and Eru, a traumatised boy from a troubled home, and the plucky residents soon rustle up the know-how – from electricians to doctors – to revive and sustain their community without outside support. A bestselling author in her homeland, Pattrick's latest novel is a rather formulaic and unsubtle tale of good versus evil, but her characters are a diverse and charming bunch, and the survival story should appeal to the Australian love of the underdog too. Saturation William Lane Transit Lounge, $32.99 This dystopian novel from William Lane is set in a world where birth rates have plummeted after an enigmatic and unrevealed catastrophe, although ecocide and overpopulation seem to have played a role. Ursula and Ambrose are librarians. They're trying for a baby – a rare sight in a world hostile not only to children, but to the past these aspiring parents seek to preserve through books. A sinister entity named Yoremind directs and informs the populace, encouraging them to witness or participate in acts of brutality and dehumanisation. When a fascist demagogue seeks dictatorial powers, the persecution of librarians and the burning of books begins. Will Ursula and Ambrose survive? Lane writes risky fiction, and although Saturation builds sinister atmospherics, neither world-building nor social critique feel sharp enough to emerge from the shadow of influential fiction that has gone before. It's unfortunate, as current trends in the dance between society and technology – from the rise of AI and social media to the climate crisis and the psychological impact of information overload – are begging for incisive, dark sci-fi treatment. Called by police to discuss his sister's suicide nine years earlier, introverted public servant James Harper is compelled to reveal that he was abused by his stepfather. It's 1999, and the 27-year-old is busy losing himself in the adrenaline of competitive bike racing (moderated by hanging with stoner mates and playing video games). Revisiting the past is the last thing he wants or expects, but as coming-of-age story merges with crime drama, James finds himself drawn to discover whether his own experience and his sister's death were related, and to seek justice for what he has suffered. The grim legacy of child sexual abuse and the shortcomings of the legal system in addressing it have become painfully clear this century, and Daniel Oakman puts readers in the shoes of a victim-survivor navigating the hard road to restitution, while trying to avoid being retraumatised. Stylistically and structurally, this debut novel has flaws – from jagged pacing to overuse of the first-person pronoun at the start of sentences – though Oakman's portrait of growing up in the 1990s can be vivid. NON-FICTION PICK OF THE WEEK Inconvenient Women: Australian Radical Writers 1900-1970 Jacqueline Kent NewSouth, $34.99 When New Zealand born Jean Devanny published her debut novel in 1926 about a woman having an extra-marital affair, she was reviled as 'disgusting, indecent and communistic'. The book went on to be Australia's first banned novel. Not bad for a first go! She's just one of the formidable figures in this study of the women writers who prepared the ground for the second-wave feminism of the 1970s. Some are not so well known now, but it's also a glittering gallery that includes Miles Franklin, Eleanor Dark, Christina Stead and so many more. They were resolute and brave – not just in what they wrote but how they lived and loved, as in Lesbia Harford's concentrated 36 years. They were also defined by generally radical political views, usually Marxist and varying shades of socialist. Highly informed, engaging, often wittily observed, this is also an impressively orchestrated study of groundbreaking writers and the tumultuous times they mirrored and interpreted. The Next Day Melinda French Gates Macmillan, $36.99 Melinda French Gates acknowledges at the start of this combination of memoir and meditation that she's had a privileged life, but she's also taken in a number of life's lessons. The key to her thinking is recognising that transitions in life are precisely that: both end and beginning, closure and opening. In seven chapters she covers such things as landing extremely supportive parents – while also learning that nobody is a perfect parent. As much as she might have aspired to perfection when she first gave birth, in that transition period between being what she was and becoming a mother, she learnt to let go of the self-imposed shame of being a working mother and being a 'good enough' parent instead. The writing is especially strong when addressing her decision to leave her husband, Bill Gates. Here she incorporates the importance of Zen teachings, mindfulness and learning to listen to the inner voice of the authentic self. There are times when the philosophising can veer on the side of a motivational speech, but, overall, it's a poised reflection on her first 60 years. There are times when this memoir, charting the author's path to an open marriage, reads like a first-person novel. Deepa Paul, a TV scriptwriter among other things, looks back on her Catholic youth in Manila with detached irony, describing how she met her husband, moved to Singapore and then Amsterdam, where they still live with their daughter. In the liberating atmosphere of Amsterdam, she realised she wanted more than the traditional marriage and experimented with online dating in secret, was found out, and over a lengthy period of time, at one point consulting a therapist, renegotiated the marriage. After various affairs (which she details, sometimes displaying a strange naivety, along with a combination of strength and fragility), she now describes herself as polyamorous, having both a husband and a lover. As well as being a mother. In writing that is vivid, sad and funny, she takes the reader into the world she and her husband have created, answering all sorts of questions with engaging, candid openness. The Shortest History of Scandinavia Mart Kuldkepp Black Inc, $35 Mart Kuldkepp's bracing short history of Scandinavia – the region being comprised of not just Sweden, Norway and Denmark, but Finland and Iceland as well – is an admirably condensed study. Naturally, the Vikings – who for most of the time were farmers and peaceful traders, until business got difficult and the swords came out – loom large. But it also charts the rise and fall of absolutism, regional wars, the conversion of the pagans to Christianity and the emergence of the modern welfare states Scandinavia is synonymous with, along with populations that are often referred to as the happiest in the world. It is, after all, the region that gave us ABBA and Hans Christian Andersen. But there's also a Nordic-noir dark side to the story, especially some dubious wartime alliances and misplaced ideas about eugenics resulting in forced sterilisations (an estimated 30,000) which went on into the 1970s. Popular, accessible history by a Nordic specialist. It was German philosopher Martin Heidegger who, more or less, first spoke of authentic and inauthentic living in his 1927 book Being and Time – later taken up by Sartre. But I doubt either of them could have envisaged the emergence of these terms in many of today's popular guidebooks to better living. Motivational speaker Sheila Vijeyarasa, for example, urges her readers to be brave in embracing change when embarking on what she calls their 'journey to a more authentic life'. It's a journey that involves a series of crucial steps, often small ones, which are all detailed in her 'roadmap guide through this dance with change'. She not only draws on her own story, the 'miracle' of her IVF baby (filmed for TV), but also the stories of her clients. Incorporating ways of dealing with, for example, shame (in cases that involve divorce and separation), as well as the importance of self-love and being open to life's possibilities, she is by turns realistic and thoughtful, sometimes with a telling image, but there's also a certain pervasive happy-clappy positivity that you either go with or don't.
The Guardian
24-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
The Sun Was Electric Light by Rachel Morton review – a clever novel about searching for belonging
Rachel Morton's debut is a languid, easy novel that explores the unease that emerges when a busy life is forced into slowness. The Sun Was Electric Light, which won the 2024 Victorian premier's literary award for an unpublished manuscript, follows Ruth, a woman who feels increasingly disconnected from her life in New York, so she moves to a small lake town in Guatemala. It is the last place she remembers where things felt real. In Panajachel, Ruth lives a life of simplicity, allowing instinct to guide her through the days. She feels no particular urgency or anxiety – and yet, she isn't exactly at peace either. The solution she had come to Guatemala in search of continues to elude her: 'I realised that the lake would not solve my problems and that nothing would solve my problems. I gave up trying and giving up felt liberating, for about fifteen minutes at a time.' Sign up for the fun stuff with our rundown of must-reads, pop culture and tips for the weekend, every Saturday morning During a period of giving up trying, Ruth meets two women. The first, Emilie, is also a foreigner, whom Ruth admires for her calm practicality. Ruth and Emilie quickly fall into a romantic relationship, although an emotional distance between them prevents their connection from reading as overly meaningful. Shortly after, Ruth also meets Carmen, whom she has 'wanted to know' since she first spotted her in the street. Carmen is the antithesis of Emilie; to Ruth, they represent 'two ways of being in the world. There was Carmen's way and there was Emilie's. Both ways were inside me, and I had to choose.' Sign up to Saved for Later Catch up on the fun stuff with Guardian Australia's culture and lifestyle rundown of pop culture, trends and tips after newsletter promotion Ruth is drawn to Carmen because she is strange and striking; Carmen was born in Panajachel to American parents, which gives her an odd quality of being simultaneously a local and an outsider. Ruth and Carmen strike up an intense friendship, though the two never become lovers. But beneath Carmen's easy charm is a sense of instability; both of her parents 'went crazy at the same time', and there's a hint that she might suffer similarly, disappearing occasionally for days at a time. Although she frames these as brief escapes to blow off steam, those close to Carmen are concerned. Questions of sanity, meaning and control are clearly of significance in The Sun Was Electric Light, a book about figuring out how to belong as much as it is about how to be good. Interestingly, we don't get a strong sense of who does 'belong' in Panajachel – the locals are mostly background, a tactic that allows Morton to avoid exoticising the people and the place, as well as reinforcing Ruth's sense of disconnection. Being a foreigner in an isolated town gives her space to reflect, but this also keeps her at arm's length from the community. She is always reminded – even by her friends – that she doesn't really belong and, in some ways, this seems to suit her. Through a different lens, Ruth might also be seen as 'crazy': she's packed in her life because it started to feel fake and left everything to chase a distant memory of happiness. She is unwilling to put down roots, and although she comes across as deeply caring of others, she also makes decisions on a whim and seems able to leave people behind with little thought. None of this is a criticism of the novel, or even of Ruth herself. In fact, it's Morton's sure writing that allows this edge of hypocrisy to come through without making Ruth any less sympathetic or fully-formed. The simple clarity of Morton's prose conceals the clever complexity of how she approaches her themes of care and connection. Some obvious questions come with a story like this – about the privilege and power of whiteness, the ethics of starting over on someone else's land, and having the financial means to consider doing so in the first place – and Morton manages to acknowledge these without attempting to answer them fully. Ruth is imperfect in many ways, but she never imposes her own answers on those around her, leaning instead towards a quiet acceptance of her life's trajectory. Morton's true restraint is here, rejecting emotional epiphany in favour of something that feels more real and more gently profound. The Sun Was Electric Light by Rachel Morton is published by UQP ($34.99)
