Minutely detailed, beautifully paced, and often wryly fun, each of the stories in The Lemon Table can be read on its own. Together however, the book becomes a rich and varied exploration through the pain, frustration, and vanities of aging,…
Category: Literary Fiction Reviews
A Review of Liam’s Going by Michael Joyce
So often novels have style but little substance and often there is a struggle to express substance but the project is doomed without style. Here is a book with both in abundance and a sense of poetry that illumines both…
A review of The Master by Colm Toibin
Although readers of The Master can’t help comparing this fictional James against the figure who is so well known and written about, the focus of the novel isn’t James the real writer. Instead the reader moves between life and longing…
A review of The Muse and the Mechanism by Josh Davis
This is a remarkable novel. It is described on the back cover as his second book but the name of this first book appears nowhere. This may thus be his first published work. It is eminently readable and assured. Reviewed…
A review of Names for Nothingness by Georgia Blain
Nothing is simple, and as Blain herself says, Names for Nothingness raises more questions than it solves. Caitlin’s life is sad, but she finds a kind of peace, even if the reader disapproves of her choice, which seems little more…
A review of Still Life in Motion by Sean Brijbasi
The arrangement of the many stories in Still Life is an adventure in itself. The groupings have titles and the succession is ‘stories about something,’ ‘stories about nothing,’ ‘stories about things that might have happened,’ ‘true stories,’ stories about things…
A review of The Best Australian Stories 2003
Creating a short story is a serious and compelling skill, and when it is done correctly, creates a powerful moment for the reader, full of the kind of intensity which can change the way we look at the world. Despite…
A review of Death of a River Guide by Richard Flanagan
“In an age where everything can mean anything, perhaps it is only possible to exist as a cipher, as a thin, fragile outline of a hope etched across an infinity of madness.” (309) Flanagan provides his answer – in the…
A review of Living to Tell the Tale by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Gabriel Garcia Marquez is a writer of such greatness that his autobiography has an intrinsic interest on the score both of his greatness and the skill with which he tells his own story. Living to Tell the Tale is the…
A review of Ignorance by Milan Kundera
When Ignorance is good, the novel flows like an insightful and moving non-fiction essay along the lines of Garner’s work. The reader perceives Kundera’s insight and shares in the attempts at returning home. There are also moments of sad beauty…