Louise Swinn

There is something of the Famous Five about this book, largely due to the central character. It is the 1870s and botanist Ingrid – ‘a woman in trousers’ – is on her horse, Thistle, collecting specimens in Western Australia. She and her father, who dearly misses her back in Adelaide, are writing and illustrating a book on wildflowers. Ingrid is practical and can fix a broken water pump; eve ... (read more)

In the bohemian district of an imaginary city not unlike a very bleak Sydney, Izzy and Eve have been living together for twenty years. Eve, who torments herself with clippings of unsolved murders, is a jeweller and also a receptionist – sometimes more – in the local brothel. Izzy draws erotic cartoons for a living, and has taken to frequenting S & M clubs. Gay men start disappearing from t ... (read more)

A Fraction of the Whole is Sydney author Steve Toltz’s sprawling début. Wearing its misanthropic heart uproariously on its sleeve, Fraction is a long father-and-son tale that traverses continents and nods to countless literary forebears on its way. James Wood coined the term ‘hysterical realism’ as a criticism of Zadie Smith’s White Teeth (2000), saying that ‘stories and sub-stories sp ... (read more)

At a time when some fiction writers are busy defending their right to incorporate autobiographical elements, and some non-fiction writers are being charged with fabrication, it seems timely of Nam Le to begin his collection of stories with one that plays with notions of authenticity in literature. The narrator of ‘Love and Honour and Pity and Pride and Compassion and Sacrifice’, ‘Nam Le’, ... (read more)