Carol Middleton

http://carolmiddleton.com.au

Carol Middleton is a journalist, arts critic and author, based in Melbourne. Her short story awards include second place in The Age competition 2010. Her fiction and nonfiction have been published in the anthologies Melbourne Subjective, Ink3 and Vine Leaves Literary Journal. She is working on a memoir in essays.

Carol Middleton reviews 'Mary Bennet' by Jennifer Paynter

June 2012, no. 342 • 23 May 2012

This début novel by Sydney playwright Jennifer Paynter is a skilful retelling of Pride and Prejudice, narrated by Mary Bennet, the forgotten middle sister. Mary’s character is true to Austen’s original conception. She is bookish, plain, and unloved, although romance soon appears on the horizon in this version of events. ... (read more)

Carol Middleton reviews 'Fishing the River of Time' by Tony Taylor

April 2012, no. 340 • 01 April 2012

This is the modest memoir of a remarkable man. At the age of eighty, geologist Tony Taylor travels from Sydney to Vancouver Island to meet his eight-year-old grandson Ned and take him fishing on the Cowichan River. Half a lifetime earlier, in 1968, Taylor had spent a formative two years in that wilderness. He is eager now to give his grandson the same education. ... (read more)

Carol Middleton reviews 'Currawalli Street' by Christopher Morgan

February 2012, no. 338 • 20 January 2012

Currawalli Street is Christopher Morgan’s second novel for adults. Set in a suburb north of Melbourne, the novel is divided into two parts. It follows the lives of the street’s residents on the brink of World War I, then skips to 1972, when one of the grandsons of the original residents returns from the Vietnam War. ... (read more)

Carol Middleton reviews 'War & Peace and Sonya' by Judith Armstrong

December 2011–January 2012, no. 337 • 24 November 2011

Judith Armstrong, a Russian and French scholar, has translated the diaries of Tolstoy’s wife, Sonya, to form the focus of her second novel. Armstrong combines an intimate knowledge of Russian literature with a close reading of the couple’s diaries to create a convincing portrait of their volatile relationship through forty-eight years of marriage. ... (read more)

Carol Middleton reviews 'The Girl and the Ghost-Grey Mare' by Rachael Treasure

October 2011, no. 335 • 27 September 2011

The latest work by bestselling Tasmanian novelist Rachael Treasure is a collection of short stories, written at various stages of her career. At the age of thirteen, Treasure began writing mock Mills & Boon stories with her friends. The influence, and the mocking tone, are still there in the square-jawed heroes with chocolate- (or coffee-) coloured eyes and dark curls, but the stories veer in ... (read more)

Carol Middleton reviews 'The Lace Tablecloth' by Anastasia Gessa-Liveriadis

July–August 2011, no. 333 • 29 June 2011

The Lace Tablecloth is the second novel by Anastasia Gessa-Liveriadis, who was born in Macedonia in 1935. It is the story of Tasia, who ostensibly serves as the author’s alter ego, living through World War II and the civil war in Macedonia, before emigrating to Australia as a young woman. ... (read more)

Carol Middleton reviews 'Fall Girl' by Toni Jordan

December 2010–January 2011, no. 327 • 10 June 2011

After her success with Addition (2008), Toni Jordan is back with a second novel, Fall Girl, an attempt, according to Jordan, to recreate on the page the romantic screen comedies of the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s. There are echoes of the zoology professor in search of million-dollar funding in Bringing Up Baby, the steamy flirtations in a luxury location of To Catch a Thief, and the witty repartee and ... (read more)

Carol Middleton reviews 'The Sparrows of Edward Street' by Elizabeth Stead

May 2011, no. 331 • 21 April 2011

Elizabeth Stead’s fifth novel is set in 1948, when newly independent women, who kept the wheels of industry turning during World War II, were resuming full-time household duties. Stead, who married a naval officer in the 1950s, would have seen this domestic dynamic played out around her. The Sparrows of Edward Street tells the story of a family – a widow and her two teenage daughters – who s ... (read more)

Carol Middleton reviews 'Flock' by Lyn Hughes

April 2011, no. 330 • 24 March 2011

The language of wallpaper is entrancing: a velvet flock, a Réveillon arabesque, a Dufour panoramic. After ten years’ research and writing, Lyn Hughes’s fourth novel, Flock, is rich with the texture and imagery of wallpaper. ... (read more)