Recommended by Dunsborough Book Chat Club
After reading Yellowface earlier this year, I promised myself I wouldn’t read another book about writers, because in fiction they tend to be horrible people to whom I can’t relate. However, this debut novel is set in Melbourne, and I have enjoyed it a lot more than the aforementioned American bestseller.
As you might guess by the title, it’s a novel about ambition. The central character is an unnamed male narrator struggling with writer’s block. He lives with his girlfriend Ruth, also a writer. While she is prolific and making a living of her essay writing, he subjects himself to clinical research trials that drain him for weeks but inflate his bank account.
One day when he comes out of a hospital stay and goes to the public pool, he recognises an old lady as the legendary and mysterious Australian author from the 70s, Brenda Shales, who had since then disappeared from the public eye. He finds out where she lives, at a nursing home, and visits her there. One of the staff assumes he is the author’s grandson, and he doesn’t deny it, jumping at the opportunity of writing the scoop of a lifetime: the truth behind why she vanished without a trace. Brenda believes the lie since she gave a son for adoption as a teenager. So, the two of them meet and she begins to reveal the truth of where her books came from. The more the narrator unravels about Brenda’s past, the more he struggles with the balance between ethics and creative ambition.
I found this book quite fascinating. It is fast paced, engaging and suspenseful. Very well-written, it is the epitome of literary fiction, and I enjoyed the high-brow language and the frequent dictionary consultations I had to do. I like a book that expands my linguistic horizons like this. Although I predicted the end, not every reader will see it coming. I do recommend it if you enjoy literary fiction.
4.5/5 Stars