PERHAPS A GIFT VOUCHER FOR MUM?: MOTHER'S DAY
ABBEY'S BOOKSELLER PICK ----- Two novellas with a slightly gimmicky flip binding so there are two covers for the two stories and no indication which one to read first. Not that it matters, as they are quite different in one respect but share common themes, and it doesn't matter which one you happen to start with. Lyle is set in the near future, in a Melbourne that suffers from extreme climate conditions and an Australia that suffers from a sinister doublespeak racism.
Lyle is married to the aspirational Chanel, who he has placed on a pedestal, and allowed his devotion to her to become her control over him. His mother Ivy lives with them, their patriotically-named two children are polar extremes (one skirting on the edges of outlawed environmental activism, the other fully embracing a life lived on social media). Lyle is struggling in all sorts of ways; his life is one of quiet and unacknowledged despair though he keeps a façade of ultra-compliance in a society where consumerism has become all-too-consuming... Lili is set in France in the early 1980s, and follows an Australian girl of Asian heritage who aspires to live a Simone de Beauvoir kind of life. Teaching in a lycee, perpetually broke, yearning for greater things but delighting in smaller ones, Lili forms a friendship with the extravagant but self-absorbed Minna. In a place of many cultures, racism is still a ruling force, and a bright and beautiful woman is really only a target for the forces of entrenched misogyny… As always, thought-provoking subjects expressed with piercingly accurate and polished writing. Lindy
'When my family emigrated it felt as if we'd been stood on our heads.' Michelle de Kretser's electrifying take on scary monsters turns the novel upside down - just as migration has upended her characters' lives.
Michelle de Kretser was born in Sri Lanka and emigrated to Australia when she was 14. Educated in Melbourne and Paris, Michelle has worked as a university tutor, an editor and a book reviewer. She is the author of The Rose Grower, The Hamilton Case, which won the Commonwealth Prize (SE Asia and Pacific region) and the UK Encore Prize, and The Lost Dog, which won a swag of awards, including the 2008 NSW Premier's Book of the Year Award and the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction, and the 2008 ALS Gold Medal. Michelle's fourth novel, Questions of Travel, received 14 honours, including the 2013 Miles Franklin Literary Award. Her latest novel, The Life to Come, was shortlisted for the 2018 Stella Prize and won the 2018 Miles Franklin Literary Award. Michelle now lives in Sydney with her partner, the poet and translator Chris Andrews.
ABBEY'S BOOKSELLER PICK ----- Two novellas with a slightly gimmicky flip binding so there are two covers for the two stories and no indication which one to read first. Not that it matters, as they are quite different in one respect but share common themes, and it doesn't matter which one you happen to start with. Lyle is set in the near future, in a Melbourne that suffers from extreme climate conditions and an Australia that suffers from a sinister doublespeak racism.
Lyle is married to the aspirational Chanel, who he has placed on a pedestal, and allowed his devotion to her to become her control over him. His mother Ivy lives with them, their patriotically-named two children are polar extremes (one skirting on the edges of outlawed environmental activism, the other fully embracing a life lived on social media). Lyle is struggling in all sorts of ways; his life is one of quiet and unacknowledged despair though he keeps a façade of ultra-compliance in a society where consumerism has become all-too-consuming... Lili is set in France in the early 1980s, and follows an Australian girl of Asian heritage who aspires to live a Simone de Beauvoir kind of life. Teaching in a lycee, perpetually broke, yearning for greater things but delighting in smaller ones, Lili forms a friendship with the extravagant but self-absorbed Minna. In a place of many cultures, racism is still a ruling force, and a bright and beautiful woman is really only a target for the forces of entrenched misogyny… As always, thought-provoking subjects expressed with piercingly accurate and polished writing. Lindy
