Crimson Light Polished Wood

Monica Raszewski

$32.99

Paperback

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English

transit lounge
01 August 2025

Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945); Australian Fiction

Leonora has relocated to Melbourne from London and falls in love with Margaret, a fellow teacher who three years later dies of cancer. While still grieving for Margaret, Leonora meets and befriends Anna, the Polish woman who lives next door.

Crimson Light Polished Wood illuminates with subtle ease the influence Leonora has on Anna's daughter, Lydia, introducing her to the world of literature and art.

This is a novel about the ways we all long for acceptance and how those we might feel most in touch with

including parents, siblings and mentors

can often have different values and views about us. As such it is a beautiful work about art, gender, inheritance, understanding and celebration.

'There is jealousy and deception in this strangely tender book that spans continents, generations and cultures. Pulsing with secrets, it stages the legacy of silence.'

Dominique Hecq

'Through her protagonist, Lydia, Monica Raszewski delicately uncovers the layers of a family friend's hidden past. This is a compassionate novel about aloneness, disappointment and betrayal; and it's about a heartfelt desire for intimacy, connectedness and belonging.'

Antoni Jach

By: Monica Raszewski
Imprint: transit lounge
Country of Publication: Australia
Dimensions: Height: 234mm, Width: 153mm,
ISBN: 9781923023451
ISBN 10: 1923023454
Pages: 224
Publication Date: 01 August 2025
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Monica Raszewski is Melbourne-based novelist and playwright. Her first novel, The Archaeology of a Dream City, was published in 2021 by Balestier Press (U.K.). It was shortlisted in the NSW Premier's Literary Awards (New Writing) in 2022. Monica has had short stories published in literary journals including Overland, Meanjin and Southerly and several plays produced in Melbourne and in Sydney. Her radio plays, Forest and Ghost Words, were produced by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and broadcast nationally.