Unnerving integrity

Julia Leigh rose to prominence at the end of the 1990s, when Australian literature was experiencing the best and worst of times. Though the 1990s were not the ‘low dishonest decade’ that the post-9/11 allegorical reading of W.H. Auden’s poem ‘September 1, 1939’ implied, this characterisation was apt where Australian literature, or at least its worldwide reception, was concerned. Relentless hype tended to drive out literary factors altogether, even as Australian novels reached audiences they had never before attained. As a young, gifted writer with a sharp, fresh style, Leigh could have easily followed up the success of the The Hunter (1999) by writing a middlebrow-pleasing mega-blockbuster. Instead, she has produced a very short but demanding work that is both compelling and highbrow. Disquiet is an even better book than The Hunter – less formulaic, operating on the level of touch as well as trope, and furiously part of the twenty-first century.