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ABBEY'S BOOKSELLER PICK ----- Ursula is an academic geologist who specialises in stratigraphy. She's self-possessed, in her fifties, and has a distant relationship with her mother, Delores, who follows an alternative lifestyle. But when Delores becomes seriously ill with something mysterious, Ursula goes to Tasmania to be with her. As the days go by, Ursula becomes increasingly aware of symptoms that seem impossible - has something taken root within? Becoming involved with a younger man she picks up in the local pub, she also starts to see the neighbouring salmon farms are emblematic of a wider environmental imbalance and the careful carapace she has crafted to keep the world at bay erodes...
This is a finely layered novel, with immaculate prose of great beauty and thoughtfulness. It is unearthly in places, but the central concept is highly plausible and believable. Meditations on ageing, grief and our place in the world, of time and twilights and giving way to what follows make this novel a cut above the ordinary. Look for it on all the award lists in due course! Lindy
Nature has another evolution in store for us ... I think about how the earth likes to cough things up. Bones, fossils, slivers of rock, like an interior self. How it likes to spew gas, lava, smoke. How the earth under our feet is anything but solid. How in fact, the surface itself is constantly in movement, teeming. And inside, inside, in the mantle, we can only guess.
‘A generous work, by a glorious young writer.’—The Australian, ‘the big books of 2026’
Ursula is a self-possessed geologist. In her life on the mainland, she’s a guardian of the timescale, dividing history into segments and reading the Earth’s depths. It sounds like science fiction, but it’s simply science.
When her ailing mother is struck with a mystery illness she is called to the coastline of lutruwita/Tasmania. What begins as an incurable rash evolves into something more dangerous.
With the sickness spreading across the island, and beyond, Ursula finds herself stranded, stuck in her mother’s house and increasingly entangled with a younger man who she met at the pub. She is grieving, beginning to unhinge – and now she too has the rash.
The wild places of the island are solace, even as the world around her begins to shift. As she faces this eruption of new life, and grapples with death and decay, Ursula realises that this change may not signal an end, but a beginning.
Deeply moving and utterly original, Mantle is a powerful novel that shows us our fate is intertwined with the people around us, and the fate of our world.
Praise:
‘Romy Ash’s Mantle is an exquisite novel. She gives voice to a remarkable and authentic cast of characters, writing with originality and dare. A wonderful book.’ – Tony Birch, author of Women and Children
‘Mantle is one of the best novels I’ve ever read, and Ash is one of the country’s finest writers. The novel just grows around you and won’t let go … This is a book of heart, of grief and of facing end times head on. Only Romy Ash has the sheer talent to tell such a tale.’ – Laura Jean McKay, author of The Animals in That Country
‘Mantle is evocative, funny, weird and gorgeous. This story will stay with you, linger on the skin and in the heart. A long-awaited class act from Ash.’ – Anna Krien, author of Act of Grace
‘Mantle is a ferocious hymn of love and grief and desire – one that howls for the planet. This novel will thread its way under your skin and wrap its tendrils around your heart. Dazzling.’ – Kate Mildenhall, author of The Hiding Place
Romy Ash is the author of Floundering, which was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin, Commonwealth Book Prize and Prime Minister’s literary awards; and a children’s picture book called As Bright as a Rainbow. She was awarded the Sydney Moring Herald Best Young Australian Novelists of the Year Award for 2013. She has been published in The Guardian, The Saturday Paper, The Griffith Review, Meanjin, Best Australian Short Stories and Best Australian Essays, among others. She lives in Naarm/Melbourne with her family.
ABBEY'S BOOKSELLER PICK ----- Ursula is an academic geologist who specialises in stratigraphy. She's self-possessed, in her fifties, and has a distant relationship with her mother, Delores, who follows an alternative lifestyle. But when Delores becomes seriously ill with something mysterious, Ursula goes to Tasmania to be with her. As the days go by, Ursula becomes increasingly aware of symptoms that seem impossible - has something taken root within? Becoming involved with a younger man she picks up in the local pub, she also starts to see the neighbouring salmon farms are emblematic of a wider environmental imbalance and the careful carapace she has crafted to keep the world at bay erodes...
This is a finely layered novel, with immaculate prose of great beauty and thoughtfulness. It is unearthly in places, but the central concept is highly plausible and believable. Meditations on ageing, grief and our place in the world, of time and twilights and giving way to what follows make this novel a cut above the ordinary. Look for it on all the award lists in due course! Lindy
