Accessibility Tools

  • Content scaling 100%
  • Font size 100%
  • Line height 100%
  • Letter spacing 100%

The Singing by Stephanie Bishop & The Patron Saint Of Eels by Gregory Day

by
August 2005, no. 273

The Singing by Stephanie Bishop

Brandl & Schlesinger, $26.95 pb, 206 pp, 1 876040 54 8

Book Cover 2 Small

The Patron Saint Of Eels by Gregory Day

Picador, $22 pb, 181 pp, 0 330 42158 1

The Singing by Stephanie Bishop & The Patron Saint Of Eels by Gregory Day

by
August 2005, no. 273

The Singing is the inaugural publication in the Varuna Firsts series, a collaboration between the Varuna Writers’ House and Brandl & Schlesinger. Both should be applauded for bringing a distinctive new voice into Australian writing; not to mention the honour due to the prodigious talent of Stephanie Bishop herself. Bishop has written a haunting novel with a seemingly simple story: love gone awry. A woman runs into an ex-lover on the street (neither protagonist is named), and this meeting throws her back into the story of their past. The two narratives – her solitary life now and the tale, mainly, of the relationship’s end – run in parallel. The novel’s energy, however, is ruminative rather than linear, circling around the nature of their love, pressing at the bruises left by its collapse.


Subscribe to ABR


Sarah Kanowski reviews 'The Singing' by Stephanie Bishop and 'The Patron Saint Of Eels' by Gregory Day

The Singing

by Stephanie Bishop

Brandl & Schlesinger, $26.95 pb, 206 pp, 1 876040 54 8

Book Cover 2 Small

The Patron Saint Of Eels

by Gregory Day

Picador, $22 pb, 181 pp, 0 330 42158 1

From the New Issue

You May Also Like

Leave a comment

If you are an ABR subscriber, you will need to sign in to post a comment.

If you have forgotten your sign in details, or if you receive an error message when trying to submit your comment, please email your comment (and the name of the article to which it relates) to ABR Comments. We will review your comment and, subject to approval, we will post it under your name.

Please note that all comments must be approved by ABR and comply with our Terms & Conditions.