The first thing about Deborah Robertson’s first novel, Careless, that strikes the reader is the way that her prose style cuts like sand. The story of three individuals united by the murder of six children is compelling, but what impresses is Robertson’s love of language, the precision of her sentences, as well as her gentle philosophical imagination and the deeper questions her book seeks to answer.
Careless by Deborah Robertson
Picador, $32.95 pb, 293 pp
Madonna of the Eucalypts by Karen Sparnon
Text, $22.95 pb, 261 pp
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