Cure

'I read it with pleasure and admiration. As with Body Friend, I was struck by the distilled wisdom of Katherine’s meditation on the power - and treachery - of the narratives we create. She’s a gloriously distinctive writer: brava, brava!'   * Michelle de Kretser, Miles Franklin award-winning author of The Life To Come and Theory & Practice * 'Cure lures you in with mesmeric prose then startles with profound insights on pain, faith, motherhood and, above all, love.' * Diana Reid, bestselling author of Love & Virtue and Signs of Damage * 'Cure is a spectacular account of our desperate pursuit of happiness through good health, and the failure of that, the unreliability of our female bodies and the grief of this unreliability. Brabon’s prose moves like a symphony, taking us through the singular transition from adolescence to womanhood — a transitory period, told in a quiet, elliptical tone. The novel explores our relationship between illness and identity with a sense of urgency and detachment, while charting the burden of daughterhood and the inextricable ties we have with our mothers.  An utterly joyful reading experience. I inhaled it.' * Jessie Tu, bestselling author of A Lonely Girl is a Dangerous Thing and The Honeyeater * 'A delicate, atmospheric story about the spidery threads of connection between daughters and our mothers, the hazy space between one body and another, between sickness and health, surrender and control. Katherine Brabon has written an eerie dream of a book.' * Madeleine Watts, author of The Inland Sea and Elegy, Southwest * 'In this age of algorithmically-induced anxieties about our bodies, Katherine Brabon’s Cure asks profound questions about what it really means to seek a cure for illness—and to learn to accept our mortal condition. I was mesmerised by the meditative, dreamlike worlds of Vera and Thea, whose dual quests for wellness show us how the psychology of hope can be just as damaging as resignation or despair. Brabon’s elegant, poetic prose is transporting; she probes our human vulnerabilities with deep insight, empathy, and restraint. Cure is timely and entirely compelling.' * Sarah Holland-Batt, Stella Prize-winning author of The Jaguar * 'Cure is a timely look at our preoccupation with wellness. Brabon's poetics around the body and female constructions of self and identity and myth are breathtaking. She writes with a cool elegance about what it means to be well; that it is somehow within our reach and control, and how if it cannot be attained, it feels like a failure of self. An eerie and compelling read.'   * Kavita Bedford, author of Friends & Dark Shapes * 'Brabon explores the search for healing – physical, emotional and generational – with exquisite finesse and sophistication. Cure exceeds the excellent Body Friend and will be a treat for readers of Gail Jones’ The Death of Noah Glass and Delia Falconer’s The Service of Clouds.' * Books + Publishing *