Debra Adelaide

Debra Adelaide reviews 'Miniatures' by Susan Midalia, 'Bloodrust' by Julia Prendergast and 'Women I Know' by Katerina Gibson

December 2022, no. 449 • 25 November 2022

Miniatures by Susan MidaliaNight Parrot Press, $24.99 pb, 175 pp What is a short short story? More specifically, how short is it (or how long)? The most famous tiny example is attributed to Ernest Hemingway: ‘For sale: baby shoes, never worn.’ Whether he wrote this or not, it represents the gold standard in suggesting much in little. Like poetry, microstories or flash fictions allow no f ... (read more)

Debra Adelaide reviews 'Cut' by Susan White and 'The Registrar' by Neela Janakiramanan

September 2022, no. 446 • 25 August 2022

It can only be coincidence that two very similar novels have been produced by contemporary doctors, but the overlapping characters and themes of Cut and The Registrar are so striking that it’s hard not to visualise their authors, Susan White and Neela Janakiramanan, getting together somewhere to sketch out their early drafts. Both novels feature young female protagonists working in teaching hosp ... (read more)

Debra Adelaide reviews 'Dinner with the Schnabels' by Toni Jordan, 'The Competition' by Katherine Collette, and 'Love and Other Puzzles' by Kimberley Allsopp

May 2022, no. 442 • 23 April 2022

Doubtless there will come a time when one’s more disciplined reading self requires nourishment from serious books that offer sustained intellectual, creative, and moral challenges. In the meantime, books – in particular the contemporary urban novel – may continue to satisfy by being charming, delightful, witty, heart-warming, hilarious, astringently refreshing, sharply observed, and deliciou ... (read more)

Debra Adelaide reviews 'Home and Other Hiding Places' by Jack Ellis, 'Loveland' by Robert Lukins, and 'Hovering' by Rhett Davis

March 2022, no. 440 • 21 February 2022

Home and Other Hiding Places by Jack Ellis Ultimo Press, $32.99 pb, 311 pp I have said this already in a recent review, but it is a special kind of novelist who can write about young characters yet still engage the adult reader. It’s also a special book that can handle the burden of what cover quotes are fond of labelling ‘warm-hearted’ or ‘big-hearted’ fiction. To me, such descriptions ... (read more)

Debra Adelaide reviews 'We Were Not Men' by Campbell Mattinson, 'The Cookbook of Common Prayer' by Francesca Haig, and 'Small Joys of Real Life' by Allee Richards

November 2021, no. 437 • 25 October 2021

One of the hardest challenges for a novelist is to write a story for adults from the point of view of a child. In 1847, Charlotte Brontë set the bar high with Jane Eyre, the first novel to achieve this. The story ends when Jane is a woman but commences with the child Jane’s perspective. So effective for readers was Brontë’s ground-breaking feat that Charles Dickens decided to write Great Exp ... (read more)

Debra Adelaide reviews 'We Were Not Men' by Campbell Mattinson, 'The Cookbook of Common Prayer' by Francesca Haig, and 'Small Joys of Real Life' by Allee Richards

November 2021, no. 437 • 28 September 2021

One of the hardest challenges for a novelist is to write a story for adults from the point of view of a child. In 1847, Charlotte Brontë set the bar high with Jane Eyre, the first novel to achieve this. The story ends when Jane is a woman but commences with the child Jane’s perspective. So effective for readers was Brontë’s ground-breaking feat that Charles Dickens decided to write Great Exp ... (read more)

Debra Adelaide reviews 'After Story' by Larissa Behrendt

July 2021, no. 433 • 22 June 2021

In the latter half of this novel, one of its protagonists is viewing a collection of butterflies at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History. This forms part of Jasmine’s holiday with her mother, Della, a tour of famous literary and other notable cultural sites in the United Kingdom. By this stage they have visited Stratford-upon-Avon, Brontë country in Haworth, and Jane Austen’s Bath ... (read more)

Debra Adelaide reviews 'From Where I Fell' by Susan Johnson, 'New Animal' by Ella Baxter, and 'Unsheltered' by Clare Moleta

May 2021, no. 431 • 26 April 2021

From Where I Fell by Susan Johnson Allen & Unwin, $32.99 pb, 338 pp A new Susan Johnson novel is always a treat, partly because you get the sense that with each one she has set herself a specific creative challenge, and partly because she is such a fine writer. In From Where I Fell, the epistolary novel, popular in the nineteenth century, has been updated, with the entire work in the form of ... (read more)

Debra Adelaide reviews 'Eye of a Rook' by Josephine Taylor, 'Everyday Madness' by Susan Midalia, and 'A Room Called Earth' by Madeleine Ryan

March 2021, no. 429 • 22 February 2021

Determining connections between books sent as a review bundle is not mandatory, but there is an irresistible tendency to find some common theme. In the case of these three novels, the theme of women’s pain, and hidden pain at that, does not need to be teased out – it leaps out. Since it is unlikely that three different authors would have colluded, the prevalence of this is worth deeper reflect ... (read more)

Debra Adelaide reviews 'In the Time of Foxes' by Jo Lennan

September 2020, no. 424 • 24 August 2020

Wonderful is not a critical word, but that is where I begin. Now that I have made my peace with foxes, I am full of wonder for them. Doubly receptive to these stories, I am quickly seduced after the first few, in which foxes appear either substantially or marginally. There is much wonderment in these stories, though only one of them is what might strictly be called speculative. Throughout the coll ... (read more)