Australian literature

Monday musings on Australian literature: Precarity and Late Capitalism

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Over the years I have written posts about and reviews of books with strong socioeconomic underpinnings. In the nineteenth century these novels tended to be described as Social Novels (and I am have just an English one for reading group, review coming) or were seen under the banner of the Realist movement. In the early to mid twentieth century, books dealing with these concerns were seen as part of the Social Realism movement. I’m playing a bit loose here, because I don’t intend to get into the weeds about definitions. I simply want to note that these novels, to quote Wikipedia’s article on Social Realism, aim to explore the “socio-political conditions of the working class as a means to critique the power structures behind these conditions”. I have written at least two Monday Musings about writing in this area, one on Factory Novels and one on Realism and Modernism, but the issues have popped up frequently in individual reviews too.

In recent years, new terms have entered the popular sociopolitical lexicon, and these include “precarity” and “late capitalism”. Precarity, with its focus on the lack of job security and all the social and psychological ills that flow from this, may be a relatively new term in sociopolitical discussion, but its broader meaning encompassing the idea of living precarious lives, has underpinned most nineteenth and early twentieth century “Social” and “Realist” novels.

Similarly, Late Capitalism is a complex “term” with a history going back many decades, but is popping up increasingly frequently across all types of writing. Wikipedia covers it in detail, but I’m using one definition from PhD student David Espinoza at the University of Sydney (2022). If you are interested, you can read more at both sites. Basically, Espinoza says that the term wasn’t taken up widely until Belgian Marxist economist Ernest Mandel’s treatise on the topic was published in English in 1975. Espinoza says that

Mandel used the idea to describe the economic expansion after the second world war … a time characterised by the emergence of multinational companies, a growth in the global circulation of capital and an increase in corporate profits and the wealth of certain individuals, chiefly in the West.

For Mandel, “late capitalism” is not so much a change in what capitalism is as “expansion and acceleration in production and exchange”. He says that “one of the main features of late capitalism is the increasing amounts of capital investments into non-traditional productive areas, such as the expansion of credit”. Espinoza says late capitalism is behind the increasing number of financial or economic crises we have had since the 1970s.

There is more, but this is the essence. It’s a bit loosey-goosey I know, but I’m not an expert in economics. However, I hope this is accurate enough and makes enough sense for our needs.

Now, last week’s Monday Musings was inspired by critic/artistic director/literary judge Beejay Silcox’s article in The Guardian on new Australian releases. As I wrote in that post, Silcox grouped the releases under headings. One was “Eco-lit flourishes”, which I discussed last week because it’s an area that interests me. Another area of interest also caught my eye, the one she called “The cost of living”. It inspired this post. Don’t worry, I am not going to go through her whole article in this way. That would be too cheeky for words!

Precarity and Late Capitalism in Australian fiction

I don’t want to repeat the books I included in those previous Monday Musings, but I will name a handful of other Australian novels (and short satires) that I’ve read that encompass these issues (though probably the most searing fictional critique I’ve read recently is Scottish writer Andrew O’Hagan’s Caledonian Road):

  • Donna M. Cameron, The rewilding (my review): capitalism and its impact on climate
  • Julie Koh, Portable curiosities (my review): satirical short stories which skewer multiple aspects of capitalist culture, including housing and banking
  • Paddy O’Reilly, Other houses (my review): social mobility and the desire to provide better opportunities for children
  • Heather Rose, Bruny (my review): satire, on globalised capital, and the conspiracies and political corruption that ensue

These books show there are many ways in which contemporary authors approach this topic, from a more traditional working-class novel (like Paddy O’Reilly’s) through to thrillers and eco-literature, and that satire is still alive as a means to expose the extremes. I would also argue that many of the recent novels by First Nations Australian writers, like Melissa Lucashenko, encompass responses to the depredations of late capitalism.

Now to Beejay Silcox’s list of what is coming in 2026. She introduced this section with the statement that “From the housing crisis to the care sandwich: an emerging and caustic theme in Ozlit (and beyond) is late capitalism and financial precarity”. As with my Eco-literature post, I will dot point the books she lists, in alphabetical order by author, for simplicity’s sake, but will include any description she provided:

  • Alan Fyfe, The cross thieves: “set in a riverside squat”, Transit Lounge, March, on my TBR
  • George Kemp, Soft serve: “traps his cast in a regional McDonald’s as a bushfire closes in”, UQP, February, on my TBR
  • Jordan Prosser, Blue giant: “sends a hungover millennial to Mars”, UQP, August
  • Ellena Savage, The ruiners: “follows an anarchist waiter from inner-city Melbourne to a decrepit Greek Island”, Summit, April
  • Fiona Wright, Kill your Boomers: “captures the mood”! Harumph, says this Boomer, watching her back (though, having children, I do understand), Ultimo, March

For the record, Silcox also names a couple of nonfiction titles on the theme: Lucinda Holdforth’s Going on and on: Why longevity threatens the future (Summit, April), and Matt Lloyd-Cape’s Our place: How to fix the housing crisis and build a better Australia (Black Inc, September).

Can you recommend any standout books you’ve read about contemporary precarity and late capitalism? Doesn’t have to be Australian. I’d love to hear.

Monday musings on Australian literature: Invasion Day/Australia Day (2026)

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It’s Monday, and I did have a post planned, until I remembered that this Monday has a very particular date, 26th January. So, I decided to postpone that post in order to make a brief statement about this date which, for many decades, has been designated Australia Day. And we have a public holiday in its honour. The problem is that this day – 26th January – commemorates the 1788 landing at Sydney Cove of Arthur Phillip and his First Fleet and the raising of the flag of Great Britain to establish a penal colony in Britain’s name. In so doing, Britain effectively invaded Australia. (On what legal basis this happened, there is discussion, but the legalities are a distraction from the fact that the British occupied land, that was already occupied, as their own.)

Although Australia Day has been a much loved day, not all Australians have been oblivious to its origins and implications. Wikipedia’s article on the Day provides a brief history of some of this recognition. For example, in 1888, before the first centennial anniversary of the First Fleet’s arrival, Henry Parkes, New South Wales’s premier at the time, was asked about including Aboriginal people in the celebrations. He apparently replied: “And remind them that we have robbed them?” (from Calla Wahlquist and Paul Karp in The Guardian, 2018)

Wikipedia also summarises the history of First Nations people’s response to the Day, including their identifying the 150th anniversary celebrations in 1938 as an Aboriginal Day of Mourning. By the nation’s Bicentennial in 1988, they were framing the day as Invasion Day. Since then, this idea has increasingly taken hold among not only First Nations but many other Australians. With the rise of social media, hashtags like “invasionday and “changethedate have appeared and have also gained traction. Momentum is building.

From drone show, Brisbane Festival 2024

So, where do I stand? I love Australia, and am very glad to be Australian. I would, therefore, like to celebrate our nation in some way on some day BUT I do not think January the 26th is the day to do it. Consequently, I am with the #changethedate proponents. And, I believe it will come. The voices are rising, and increasingly more Australians are feeling uncomfortable about celebrating a day that feels dishonest and that disrespects and brings pain to the country’s first peoples. We can find another date – that is not hard. We just have to do it.

POSTSCRIPT (28/1/2026): I fear I spoke too soon re change coming. According to a report in The Conversation, there has been little change in numbers supporting a date change. In 2021, around 38% of Australians agreed Australia Day should not be celebrated on January 26, while just over 60% disagreed. By late 2025, those figures were around the same, with 37% opposing the date and 62% supporting its retention. But, the worrying thing is that, also according to the report, there has been an increase in the strength of opposition to changing the date. That is a worry for those of us who believe change is a necessary part of the reconciliation journey.

Monday musings on Australian literature: Eco-literature, Redux

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Nearly five years ago, I wrote a Monday Musings on a branch of writing dubbed “eco-literature”. Since then I have reviewed a few works that I have tagged “eco-literature“, including, just yesterday, Jessica White’s collection of essays, Silence is my habitat: Ecobiographical essays. Coincidentally, a couple of weeks ago, critic/artistic director/literary judge Beejay Silcox sent me a link to her article in The Guardian on new Australian releases. In it, she grouped the releases under headings, one of which was “Eco-lit flourishes”. So, I thought, why not do a little update …

In that first Musings, I started with definitions, including one from Wikipedia, but it was limited to “ecofiction” (as were a few other sources I cited). Five years on, Wikipedia still doesn’t have an article on “eco-literature”. This is a bit surprising, as I do think it is a much broader church, as does The Wire’s Rajesh Subramanian, whom I quoted in that previous post. He asked in 2017 whether “Eco-Literature” could be “the Next Major Literary Wave”, and defined it as encompassing

the whole gamut of literary works, including fiction, poetry and criticism, which lay stress on ecological issues. Cli-fi (climate fiction), which deals with climate change and global warming, is logically a sub-set of eco-literature.

Five years on, I think we could say it is an established field in contemporary literature – and that it does compass all those forms Subramanian lists, and more (like essays, for example).

Indeed, I’d argue that it is so established that there are bona-fide sub-categories, if not sub-sub categories (such as cli-fi or climate fiction being a sub-category of eco-fiction which itself would be a sub-category of eco-literature).

Eco-literature in Australia

So, if I look at the Australian works I have categorised as eco-literature over the last five years, they include a work of literary fiction, Robbie Arnott’s Limberlost (my review), two works in the crime genre, Donna Cameron’s Rewilding (my review) and Shelley Burr’s Vanish (my review), and Jessica White’s book of essays. Other books which I haven’t tagged, but should have, include First Nations books, because the land, and our use and (mostly rapacious) treatment of it, is never far from the story being told, whether it be fiction, like Melissa Lucashenko’s Edenglassie (my review) or nonfiction, like Debra Dank’s We come with this place (my review).

This is a tiny and narrow selection of what is being written, but it provides some sense of the variety out there, as does Beejay Silcox’s list of what is coming in 2026. She opens this section of her article with “It is a dark irony that our most alive fiction is anchored to extinction: the wilder our grief and awe, the wilder our storytelling”. I will dot point the books she lists, for simplicity’s sake, but will include any description she provided:

  • Romy Ash, Mantle: one of the three “apocalyptic eco-fables”, Silcox identifies, this one about “a virulent rash”, Ultimo, April
  • Johanna Bell’s The Department of the Vanishing: documentary poetry/archival image/verse, “the literary equivalent of a murder board”, Transit Lounge, March, on my TBR
  • Tim and Emma Flannery’s A brief history of climate folly: nonfiction, “stranger than fiction. It collects real-world tales of humanity’s attempts to control the weather – like Hitler’s plan to drain the Mediterranean”, Text, August
  • Keely Jobe’s The endling: the second of the three “apocalyptic eco-fables”, this one about “immaculate conception in a feminist utopia”, Scribe, March
  • John Morrissey, Bird deity: the third of the three “apocalyptic eco-fables”, this one about “the wakeful ruins of an alien civilisation”, Text, February, on my TBR
  • Adam Ouston‘s Mine: novel, which “follows a climate activist trapped at the bottom of an abandoned goldmine and is told in a single, wheeling 278-page sentence”, Transit Lounge, August

Silcox also named other authors bringing out “eco-inflected fiction” this year. I have added the titles, where I know them: Eva Hornung’s The minstrels, Katherine Johnson, Inga Simpson, Maria Takolander and Sarah Walker.

Book cover of Jane Harper's The Dry

The thing about eco-literature, perhaps more than most other forms or genres, is that its very nature implies a desire to effect change. Regarding this, I found an article written in 2023* which surveyed readers of eco-crime fiction. Their starting point was “whether narratives can persuade readers to reflect on and perhaps reconsider their own moral beliefs”, and their reader-response research focused on investigating “how Australian readers respond to works of Australian eco-crime fiction that portray non-humans and global ecological issues such as climate change in a local Australian context”. They concluded:

One potentially restrictive element of eco-crime fiction in terms of its potential to engage readers with pro-environmental understandings is the dark and confronting atmosphere of most of these texts. Crime fiction by nature is grim. Add to this an emphasis on catastrophic ecological crises and the connections between such crises and violent crime, and there is a strong possibility that such texts may not do much to convince people that positive change is possible. It is significant that this hopelessness may actually be a deterrent for some readers to engage with climate action in the real world.

Oh dear! And, presumably dystopian eco-fiction would generate a similar response? But maybe not all types of eco-literature?

So, over to you. Do you read “eco-literature”? And if so, what sort do you read and does it encourage you to take action?

* Rachel Fetherston, Emily Potter, Kelly Miller, Devin Bowles, “Seeking greener pages: An analysis of reader response to Australian eco-crime fiction” in Australian Humanities Review, Iss. 71, (May 2023): 1-21.

Jessica White, Silence is my habitat (#BookReview)

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Those of us who follow Jessica White have been waiting for the biography of nineteenth century botanist, Georgiana Molloy, that we know she has been researching, but then, almost out of the blue, appeared something a little different, a collection of ecobiographical essays titled, Silence is my habitat.

Published under the beautiful Upswell imprint, Silence is my habitat takes us on a journey with White as she navigates her grief over her mother’s death, tying into it, as she goes, the many strands that have comprised her life to date. Like her hybrid memoir, Hearing Maud (my review), Silence is my habitat defies easy categorisation. It’s not straight biography or memoir, and while it presents as a collection of essays, they are not, for all their careful end-noting, your typical formal essay. This is why I like White. She is out there in the vanguard thinking about what makes us who we are and about how to write about it, honestly and openly. On her website, she explains her book thus:

While a biography chronicles a person’s life, an ecobiography details how a person’s sense of self is shaped by their environment. My forthcoming essay collection, Silence is my Habitat: Ecobiographical Essays, details how deafness shapes my relationship with different environments, such as the bush, bodies of water, archives, and institutions.

In this book, then, the self is herself, not Georgiana Molloy, though Molloy makes frequent appearances all the same. The book comprises eleven essays, some of which have been published before, in their entirety or in different forms.

Many strands

I wrote above that in Silence is my habitat, White incorporates “the many strands” of her life to date. They include, of course, her biography – her family-farm childhood, becoming deaf at the age of four, finding her partner, the motherhood question, and the wrenching death of her mother. They also include her academic and research life which have taken her around Australia and the world, and various other events and issues, such as the pandemic or, even, architecture.

Then, threading through and linking the essays (and these strands) are three main motifs – deafness, grief, and nature. Importantly, White opens with an Author’s Note in which she briefly discusses the “deaf” versus “Deaf” issue, advising that she will use the lowercase version for herself, but uppercase where it is the preference of people she references. Identity and nomenclature, as we know, is a fraught issue, so it is worth being upfront, as White is, clearly and respectfully.

So the essays … we start with scene-setting, in an essay appropriately titled “Grounding”. It gives us, effectively, her origin story, ending with the expected, but nonetheless devastating death of her mother. Referencing the etymology of the word “essay”, she concludes:

To write an essay is to make an attempt, to test or try out one’s responses to a subject, emotionally, intellectually and psychologically … Perhaps this is why I turned to the form in the year following my mother’s death. (“Grounding”)

Essays, though, can take many forms, with White adopting here a discursive style, which, in this case, relies largely on vignettes and digressions to explore that essay’s main theme. This approach encourages us to see the world holistically – to look for connections (and perhaps find more for ourselves) – rather than follow one line of argument. In “Hostile architecture”, for example, White starts by referencing two specific uses of architectural features to deter, respectively, pigeons and homeless people. Then, through vignettes which shift between her own experiences and the research of others, she explores ways of “accommodating” workers with disabilities. She talks specifically about DeafSpace, a concept developed at/for Gallaudet College, and closes by bringing these personal and informational strands together to make the essay’s main point about Universal Design that just might suit us all.

These are elegantly written essays, which is easier to say than to explain because, to some degree, it’s indefinable. But, I’ll give it a try. I see it as a combination of several things. The language, for one. White interweaves straight information from academic research with small narratives from moments in her life, gorgeous descriptions of nature, and expression of deep, sometimes heart-breaking emotion.

Then there’s the way White develops her essays. For example, “Intertwining”, which follows the aforementioned “Hostile architecture”, starts very differently – on something personal, with White scrambling over rocks in Cumbria, and thinking about Georgiana Molloy who had left that region for Western Australia in 1829. The rest of the essay focuses mostly on Molloy’s life, but told through personal and ecobiographical perspectives which include White interweaving her own painful journey to non-motherhood with the story of Molloy, who buries two children and distracts herself from grief “by turning to the natural world”. Another recurrent perspective appears here, the colonial project, because the Molloys were, of course, part of “the colonisation [that] crept across the south-west like a parasitic vine”, and has resulted in ongoing stress on “weathered soils … never meant to sustain large numbers of humans”. The essay ends, neatly, with White standing on Cape Freycinet, near where the Molloys had lived, and coming to terms with her own life and choices.

And finally, there’s the sophistication of the ideas being explored through this ecobiographical framework. The concept – of understanding how a person’s sense of self is shaped through their interaction with their ecosystem – is easy enough to grasp, but conveying that in a nuanced way for any particular individual is the challenge.

For White, the self has, since she was four, been framed by her deafness. It made her, from that young age, “observant and quiet” which, given she was a farm girl, meant she developed the kinship with the natural world that imbues all the essays. Deafness also made her dependent on her family until she was in her mid-thirties. From this she develops ideas about interdependencies – between people, between people and culture, and between people and the environment. Through her essays, White teases out how these facts of her life – deafness and dependencies/interdependencies – make her who she is including informing her understanding of the world. They give her a particular way of seeing that she translates for us. For example, she writes of research into ecoacoustics, and how even soil has sound. Degraded soils, however, are quieter, which causes her to suggest:

If ecosystems are quiet, it seems that we should pay attention to them. (“On the wing”)

Silence is my habitat is the sort of writing I enjoy. It’s intelligent, heartfelt, confronting and confident – and, by the end, White has found not only the space to grieve but a way forward. That way forward includes recognising the interdependence of all things:

If silence is our habitat, it is one that engenders contemplation, compassion and creativity. It prompts us to seek connection, for we understand innately that to be alone is dangerous. Our lives are intimately bound up with, and depend upon, other creatures. In losing them, we lose ourselves. (“Balancing”)

Ecobiography, I can see, has much to offer.

Jessica White
Silence is my habitat: Ecobiographical essays
Perth: Upswell, 2025
170pp.
ISBN: 9781763733121

Monday musings on Australian literature: Why festivals?

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I did have another plan for today’s Monday Musings, but it seemed wrong to ignore the elephant in the room, that is, the dire situation facing the Adelaide Festival’s Writers Week. Australians will not need me to explain what has happened, but for those of you not across the events, I’ll briefly explain.

The Adelaide Writers Week is one part of the wide-ranging Adelaide Festival, which is a significant Australian cultural event and which attracts visitors from around Australia and the world. This year’s Writers Week is (was) due to begin on 28 February, but is now in complete disarray because over 100 writers have withdrawn their participation after the Board removed Palestinian Australian author and academic Randa Abdel-Fattah from the line-up on the grounds of “cultural sensitivity” in the wake of December’s Bondi Massacre. (She was to speak on her debut adult novel, Discipline, which appeared in my report on favourite reads of 2025.) The Board stated that:

Whilst we do not suggest in any way that Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah’s [sic] or her writings have any connection with the tragedy at Bondi, given her past statements we have formed the view that it would not be culturally sensitive to continue to program her at this unprecedented time so soon after Bondi. (from Adelaide Festival website)

Hmmm … This follows the furore that occurred last August when multiple authors, including Randa Abdel-Fatteh, withdrew from the Bendigo Writers Festival after the festival adopted a code of conduct which, among other things, required participants to “avoid language or topics that could be considered inflammatory, divisive or disrespectful.” The withdrawing writers rejected this stifling of their freedom of expression. (See the excellent The Conversation piece linked below.)

I am not going to discuss this issue in detail because you can read about it at The Conversation, and other online sites that are covering the situation as it unfolds. I don’t need to add my voice to the chorus, except to say that I am a librarian by training, and freedom of expression is one of the tenets of our profession. I want to see respectful – thoughtful – discussion on the big issues we are facing.

So instead, I’m going to share a few Australian articles and posts on writers festivals and their value.

For writers, festivals are not, as readers might expect, a source of stellar sales. Apparently, only the top name writers tend to sell well at festivals*. But, according to writer and authorpreneur (!) Anna Featherstone, festivals offer writers a whole bunch of benefits. And she lists many of them, from the practical opportunities that come from networking to the stimulation and inspiration that can come from being with other writes and readers. She’s a big advocate, and points to festivals like the Byron Bay Writers Festival and the Romance Writers Australia Conference. In fact, early writers festivals were primarily for and attended mainly by writers.

The writers festival as a wider community phenomenon is a relatively recent development. However, my sense is that no matter how different festivals are, or how big or small, this networking aspect with its many-pronged possibilities, is still of value to many writers. In 2024, Kill Your Darlings asked “publishing industry folk” to share “some of the unexpected and useful things they’ve learned along the way about writers’ festivals”. Most of these people were writers, and while they offer a wide variety of advice, the one that appeared most frequently was to encourage writers to take the opportunity to talk to other writers.

But, it is the cultural value of writers festivals that has seen their stunning rise in popularity over the last couple of decades, a rise that has resulted in regional town after regional town establishing their own festival. Some have gone on to become well established events.

There are many articles and posts on this aspect of festivals, but Queensland’s Storyfest has a lovely succinct piece on “The role of writers festivals in shaping our communities”. And, in particular, they say this:

As an arena of intellectual debate, a platform to express opinions – literary, political, and otherwise – and a place where an increasingly varied group of people congregate, it is only natural that literary festivals have a role in politics too. As political platforms, writers’ festivals give attendees the opportunity to engage with thoughtful, mediated conversations and to learn new ideas from fresh, often authentic sources. 

[…]

As such, writers’ festivals have grown to be events that contribute to the wider public’s engagement in issues and ideas of broader interest to society. Their role is no longer merely to connect readers and writers … While writers still use these events to meet other writers, readers, and to network, these festivals have grown in function and duties over the last couple of decades. This has expanded the purpose of literature festivals, making them play a significant role in local and international politics too. 

This gels with what I look for in a festival. I mostly avoid the “big author” sessions and go for those where I think I’ll be confronted by some different ideas or ways of seeing, where I might be made to feel uncomfortable (in a respectful way!) These sessions are not always easy to find but at the recent Canberra Writers Festival I did find some.

And now, let’s return to the Adelaide Writers Week. I found a blog post written in 2024 by author and blogger Anne Green (of Eating My Words). Her post is titled “Literary Festivals: The good, the bad and the ugly”. It covers all the issues I had dot-pointed for including here (including the tourist potential for small towns, and the “elitism” critique of festivals). It also has a significant focus on Adelaide Writers Week, and its history. It’s a well-researched, comprehensive post that made me realise I didn’t need to reinvent the wheel here!

So, instead, I will close on a quote from another site, writes4women, which struck me – forcefully:

Writing festivals are a reflection of where our country is at any given moment.

That’s a worry!

* See Melanie Joosten at the Kill Your Darlings link.

Carmel Bird, Crimson velvet heart (#BookReview)

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If you have read Carmel Bird’s memoir Telltale (my review), you will know about her love of story, particularly of history, and fairy story, and legends. You will also know about her love of objects, of beautiful objects or strange ones, and of the meanings embodied within them. And, if you have read anything by Carmel Bird, you will know her light touch, even when dealing with the most serious subjects. All these coalesce beautifully in her latest novel, which is also her first work of historical fiction, Crimson velvet heart.

“wars and princesses”

Crimson velvet heart is set during the latter part of the reign of Louis XIV (1638-1715). It tells the story of the “all but forgotten” Princess Marie Adélaïde of Savoy (1685-1712), who, in 1686 at the age of 11, is brought to France to marry Louis’ grandson, the Duke of Burgundy. Why? Well, it’s all to do with “wars and princesses”. Adélaïde’s fate was sealed by the Treaty of Turin which had been negotiated that very year between her father, the “wily” Victor Amadeus, and Louis. It ended Savoy’s involvement in the Nine Years War, and central to it was Adélaïde’s marriage. She was, effectively, a spoil of war, or, as the narrator more pointedly puts it, “a prize in a party game”. The wedding takes place the following year, when Adélaïde is 12, but is not consummated for another two years, after she becomes “a woman”. Her job, of course, is to produce an heir.

Bird’s novel tells the story of Adélaïde’s life from birth to death, but primarily focuses on her years at Court, which are cut short in 1712, when she dies, most likely of measles. She had, however, done her duty, having produced the required heir, the boy who was to become Louis XV. These are the essential facts.

However, when an author decides to write historical fiction, I want to know why. In the case of Crimson velvet heart, I see two reasons – one historical, the other more general. The historical comprises two questions which become apparent as the novel progresses but are put explicitly by the narrator near the end. They are: “Did Adélaïde really spy successfully for her father?”, and “Was the love between Adélaïde and Louis XIV ever consummated?”. The narrator then adds, slyly, “Is the second question more interesting than the first?” Now that’s a loaded question. Regardless, these two questions have occupied the minds of historians ever since, but we will never know the answers.

Crimson velvet heart, then, uses these two specific questions to frame a lively, engaging read about one of those fascinating periods in history that is populated by people – like Louis and Adélaïde – who lived large lives which have captured the imagination of people ever since. The novel portrays court life – its schemes and jealousies, excesses and dangers, and, of course, its splendour. The realities – the forever wars, the religious persecution, the disparity in wealth, the poor health (including terrible teeth) – are set against the opulence of lives lived in palaces and gardens, at balls and on horseback.

It is to Bird’s credit that she can juggle telling an entertaining story full of romance and intrigue, while simultaneously adding complexity to our thinking about history and humanity. She achieves this partly through using two narrators. One is the more traditional omniscient third person narrator, though “traditional” is not a word I’d ever use for Bird, while the other is one of the few fictional characters in the novel, a young nun, Sister Clare, who knew Adélaïde in her years at court and tells her story first person from a time after Adélaïde’s death. Whilst it’s not a rigid demarcation, the third person focuses mostly on the historical facts, including the wars and treaties, and on filling in background that Clare couldn’t know, while Clare provides the personal touch, offering (imagined) insights into who Adélaïde might have been. Clare’s picture is of a resourceful young woman, who is vibrant and enchanting, who suffers loss and pain, but who can also be manipulative and cruel.

However, Clare is also everywoman, a person who, through writing her “Storybook”, tries “to make sense of life’s bewilderments”. She’s like all of us who live through a time and only know what we can glean from our own observations and research, which in Clare’s time of course was primarily through conversations with others. Our narrator, on the other hand, has the advantage of a wider historical sweep, so understands more, though can’t know what isn’t known (if you know what I mean!) This is where Bird’s tone shows most. Her narrator offers a wise and thoughtful perspective, but with a lightly wry and knowing touch that is pure Bird. It starts early on, when the narrator reports on the priest’s blessing of the newly-born Adélaïde and her mother:

He commends them to the happiness of everlasting life. Time will tell. (p. 6)

That little addition, “time will tell”, told me I would enjoy this narrator’s point of view.

Bird also uses recurring motifs to underpin her story and its meaning. This is a story focusing on women, so domestic motifs abound. Tapestry, embroidery and weaving, knots and pincushions, are the stuff of women’s lives but they also produce wonderful metaphors for a story about war and court intrigue. As does colour, with crimson evoking both richness and blood. So, we have gorgeous images galore, like Clare trying to understand the religious hatred that has Catholics persecuted in England, and Protestants in France:

It is like … a tapestry sewn by lunatics so that it makes no sense as a picture. (p. 48)

The novel’s title, itself, refers to a crimson velvet heart pincushion in which Louis’ “secret wife”, Madame de Maintenon, keeps track of religious conversions, because “when there was one less Protestant in the world, then the world was a better place”.

There is another logic to these motifs, however, because tapestries, embroideries, and artworks are among the limited primary historical sources available to the historian of long-ago times. Bird’s narrator references these and cautions that “like the camera, the artist’s brush can lie, leaving a false trail for the historian to follow”.

Earlier in this post, I suggested there were two responses to the question about why Carmel Bird might have chosen to write this novel. My second encompasses the novel’s exploration of a universal that is uncomfortably relevant today, the complex relationship between war, territory and religion, and its comprehension of the paradoxes of human behaviour, in which love and betrayal, cruelty and kindness, reside side-by-side.

In the end, Crimson velvet heart presents just what Sister Clare set out to do when she began her Storybook, “a vision of the world in all its beauty, and with all its flaws”. It also embodies serious ideas about the art of history and storytelling. A wonderful read.

Carmel Bird
Crimson velvet heart
Melbourne: Transit Lounge, 2025
309pp.
ISBN: 9781923023512

Review copy courtesy Transit Lounge.

Monday musings on Australian literature: Some New Releases in 2026

/ Whispering Gums / 23 Comments

For some years now, my first Monday Musings of the year has comprised a selected list of new Australian book releases for the coming year. For many years, the bulk of this post came from a comprehensive list prepared by Jane Sullivan for the Sydney Morning Herald. Last year that changed to something more selective, and this year, I think it is similar, but is paywalled.

So, this year the research is all mine, mainly from publisher websites, but also from a couple of other sources like publisher emails. The sources varied in how well and thoroughly they shared their forthcoming titles, and many only cover the early part of the year, as you can tell from my list.

Links on the authors’ names are to my posts on those authors.

Fiction

As always, I have included some but not all the genre fiction I found to keep the list manageable and somewhat focused, and I have not included books for younger readers. Here’s my selection:

  • Debra Adelaide, When I am sixty-four (March, UQP): based on Adelaide’s friendship with Gabrielle Carey
  • Romy Ash, Mantle (April, Ultimo Press)
  • Johanna Bell, Department of the Vanishing (March, Transit Lounge)
  • Bridie Blake, The boyfriend clause (March, Text): debut novel (romance)
  • Brendan Colley, The season for flying saucers (April, Transit Lounge)
  • Abby Corson, Happy woman (April, Ultimo Press): cosy crime
  • Amanda Curtin, Six days (August, Upswell)
  • Alan Fyfe, The cross thieves (March, Transit Lounge)
  • Sulari Gentill, Chasing Odysseus (The Hero Trilogy, Book 1, plus Books 2 & 3) (May, Ultimo Press)
  • Robert Gott, The winter murders (latest in the Seasonal Murders) (August, Scribe)
  • Christine Gregory, The informant (May, Ultimo Press)
  • Victoria Hannan, I love the whole world! (August, Penguin)
  • Anita Heiss, The paradise pact (March, Simon and Schuster): First Nations
  • Eva Hornung, The minstrels (March, Text)
  • Ian Kemish, Two islands (February, UQP): debut novel
  • George Kemp, Soft serve (February, UQP): debut novel
  • Emily Lighezzolo, Life drawing (March, UQP)
  • Laure McPhee-Browne, Worry doll (June, Scribe)
  • Melissa Manning, Frogsong (March, UQP)
  • Sean Micallef, DeAth takes a holiday (March, Ultimo Press)
  • Jaclyn Moriarty, Time travel for beginners (August, Ultimo Press)
  • John Morrissey, Bird deity (February, Text): First Nations
  • Angela O’Keeffe, Phantom days (April, UQP)
  • Ellena Savage, The ruiners (no date, Summit)
  • Bobuq Sayed, No god but us (May, Ultimo Press): debut novel
  • M.L. Stedman, A far-flung life (March, Penguin)
  • Olivia Tolich, Side character energy (February, Text): debut novel (romance)
  • Steve Toltz, A rising of the lights (April, Penguin)
  • Sita Walker, In a common hour (January, Ultimo Press)
  • Dave Warner, Sound mind dead body (no date, Fremantle Press)
  • Fiona Wilkes, I remember everything (no date, Fremantle Press)
  • Chloe Wilson, The turnbacks (May, Penguin): debut novel
  • Michael Winkler, Griefdogg (March, Text)
  • Fiona Wright, Kill your boomers (March, Ultimo Press)

There are a few familiar names here, including some from whom we’ve not heard for a while (like Eva Hornung, Amanda Curtin and Romy Ash) and others who have published in other forms but are making their novel debuts (like Chloe Wilson).

Short stories

None that I saw.

Nonfiction

Divided into two broad categories …

Life-writing (loosely defined)

  • Cynthia Banham, Mother shadow: A meditation on maternal inheritance (April, Upswell)
  • Clara Brack, The secret landscapes: On not pleasing your mother (April, Upswell)
  • Valerie A Brown, The girl on the roof: The life of a change-maker (June, Scribe)
  • David Carlin and Peta Murray, How to dress for old age (February, Upswell)
  • Rosalie Ham, Look after your feet (April, Allen & Unwin)
  • Kate Holden, The ruin of magic: Longing and belonging in strange times (April, Black Inc)
  • Susan Lever, A.D. Hope: A life (March, La Trobe University Press/Black Inc)
  • Linda Martin, A tale of two publishing houses: A behind-the-scenes look into the publishing industry (April, Fremantle Press)
  • Jim Morrison, Tony Hansen, Alan Carter and Steve Mickler (ed), Why weren’t we told? (November, Upswell): First Nations stolen generation stories
  • Patrick Mullins, The stained man: a crime, a scandal, and the making of a nation (April, Scribe)
  • Lisa Wilkinson, The Titanic story of Evelyn (April, Hachette)
  • Laura Elizabeth Woollett, Hell days (September, Scribe)

History and other non-fiction

  • Julie Andrews, Where’s all the community? Aboriginal Melbourne revisited (March, Black Inc): First Nations
  • Danielle Clode, The enigmatic echidna: Secrets of the world’s most curious creature (May, Black Inc)
  • Michael Dulaney, Sentinels: how animals warn us of disease (August, Scribe)
  • Peter Hartcher, The Age of Carnivores: How Australia can navigate the new global order (March, Black Inc)
  • Andrew Leigh, The shortest history of innovation (February, Black Inc)
  • Martin McKenzie-Murray, Sirens: Inside the shadow world of first responders (April, Black Inc)
  • Ross McMullin, The light on the hill: An updated history of the Australian Labor Party (June, Scribe)
  • Desmond Manderson, High time: How Australia changed its mind about illegal drugs (April, La Trobe University Press/Black Inc)
  • Murray Pittock, The shortest history of Scotland (February, Black Inc)
  • Erin Vincent, Fourteen ways of looking (March, Upswell)

Poetry

Finally, for poetry lovers, I found these from publisher websites:

  • Beverley Farmer, For the seasons: Haikus (February, Giramondo): posthumous publication
  • Susan Fealy, The deer woman (May, Upswell)
  • Toby Fitch, Or, an autobiography (March, Upswell)
  • Yvette Henry Holt, Fitzroy North 3068 (May, Upswell)
  • Kristen Lang , [re]turn: love notes from the mountain (February, Upswell)
  • Caitlin Maling, Midwest (September, Upswell)
  • Maria van Neerven, Two tongues (February, UQP): First Nations
  • Dženana Vucic, after war (April, UQP)

So far I have read only two from my 2025 lists, one less than I had last year, but I have several on the TBR. Will I finish those, and how will I go this year?

PS I published this on Saturday NOT Monday by mistake! Oh well, you get my list early. If I find more titles I will add them.

Meanwhile, anything here interest you?

Monday musings on Australian literature: Favourite books 2025, Pt 2: Nonfiction

/ Whispering Gums / 28 Comments

Last Monday, I shared the favourite Fiction and Poetry books that had been chosen by various critics and commentators in a select number of sources. I haven’t always shared the nonfiction choices, though I do think it’s worth doing – so this year I am! I won’t repeat the intro from last week, but I will re-share the sources, having edited them slightly to show those which included nonfiction … and remind you that I’ve only included the Aussie choices.

Here are the sources I used:

  • ABC RN Bookshelf (radio broadcaster): Cassie McCullagh, Kate Evans and a panel of bookish guests, Jason Steger (arts journalist and former book editor); Jon Page (bookseller); Robert Goodman (reviewer and literary judge specialising in genre fiction): only shared their on air picks, not their extras which became long
  • Australian Book Review (literary journal): selected across forms by ABR’s reviewers
  • Australian Financial Review (newspaper, traditional and online): shared “the top picks …to add to your holiday reading pile.” (free briefly, but now paywalled.)
  • The Conversation (online news source): experts from across the spectrum of The Conversation’s writing so a diverse list
  • The Guardian (online news source): promotes its list as “Guardian Australia critics and staff pick out the best books of the year”.
  • Readings (independent bookseller): has its staff “vote” for their favourite books of the year, and then lists the Top Ten in various categories, one of which is adult nonfiction, of which I have included the Australian results.

And here are the books …

Life-writing (Memoir/Autobiography/Biography/Diaries)

Book cover
  • Katherine Biber, The last outlaws (Patrick Mullins, ABR; Clare Wright, ABR)
  • David Brooks, A.D. Hope: A memoir of a literary friendship (Tony Hughes-d-Aeth, ABR)
  • Geraldine Brooks, Memorial days (Jenny Wiggins, AFR; Susan Wyndham, The Guardian; Readings)
  • Bob Brown, Defiance (Readings)
  • Candice Chung, Chinese parents don’t say I love you (Readings)
  • Robert Dessaix, Chameleon (Tim Byrne, The Guardian) (on my TBR)
  • Helen Garner, How to end a Story: Collected diaries (Ben Brooker, ABR; Stuart Kells, ABR; Jonathan Ricketson, ABR; Lucy Clark, The Guardian) (see my posts on vol 1 and vol 2 from this collected volume)
  • Moreno Giovannoni, The immigrants (Joseph Cummins, The Guardian)
  • Hannah Kent, Always home, always homesick (Kate Evans, ABC)
  • Josie McSkimming, Gutsy girls (Amanda Lohrey, ABR)
  • Sonia Orchard, Groomed (Clare Wright, ABR)
  • Mandy Sayer, No dancing in the lift (Clare Wright, ABR)
  • Lucy Sussex and Megan Brown, Outrageous fortunes: The adventures of Mary Fortune, crime-writer, and her criminal son George (Stuart Kells, ABR)
  • Marjorie (Nunga) Williams, Old days (Julie Janson, ABR)

History and other nonfiction

  • Geoffrey Blainey, The causes of war (rerelease) (Stuart Kells, ABR)
  • Ariel Bogle and Cam Wilson, Conspiracy nation (Joseph Lew, AFR)
  • Liam Byrne, No power greater: A history of union action in Australia (Marilyn Lake)
  • Anne-Marie Condé, The Prime Minister’s potato: And other essays (Patrick Mullins, ABR) (on my TBR)
  • Joel Deane, Catch and kill: The politics of power (rerelease) (Stuart Kells, ABR) 
  • Helen Garner, Chloe Hooper & Sarah Krasnostein, The Mushroom Tapes (Donna Lu, The Guardian; Readings)
  • Juno Gemes, Until justice comes (Mark McKenna, ABR)
  • Alyx Gorman, All women want (Sian Cain, The Guardian)
  • Luke Kemp, Goliath’s curse: The history and future of societal collapse (Tom Doig, The Conversation; John Long, The Conversation)
  • Richard King, Brave new wild: Can technology really save the planet? (Carody Culver, ABR; Clinton Fernandes, ABR)
  • Shino Konishi, Malcolm Allbrook and Tom Griffiths (ed), Reframing Indigenous biography (Kate Fullager, ABR)
  • Natalie Kyriacou, Nature’s last dance: Tales of wonder in an age of extinction (Euan Ritchie, The Conversation)
  • Melissa Lucashenko, Not quite white in the head (Glyn Davis, ABR; Michael Williams, ABR; Readings)
  • Ann McGrath and Jackie Huggins (ed), Deep history: Country and sovereignty (Kate Fullager, ABR)
  • Tom McIlroy, Blue Poles: Jackson Pollock, Gough Whitlam and the painting that changed a nation (Esther Anatolis, ABR; Alex Now, AFR)
  • Mark McKenna, Shortest history of Australia (Patrick Mullins, ABR)
  • Djon Mundine, Windows and mirrors (Victoria Grieves Williams, ABR)
  • Antonia Pont, A plain life: On thinking, feeling and deciding (Julienne van Loon, The Conversation)
  • Margot Riley, Pix: The magazine that told Australia’s story (Kevin Foster, ABR)
  • Sean Scalmer, A fair day’s work: The quest to win back time (Marilyn Lake, ABR)
  • Emma Shortis, After America: Australia and the new world order (Marilyn Lake, ABR)
  • Don Watson, The shortest history of the United States of America (Emma Shortis, The Conversation)
  • Hugh White, Hard new world: Our post-American future (Marilyn Lake, ABR)
  • Tyson Yunkaporta & Megan Kelleher, Snake talk (Readings)

Cookbooks

  • Helen Goh, Baking & the meaning of life (Sian Cain, The Guardian)
  • Rosheen Kaul, Secret sauce (Alyx Gorman, The Guardian)
  • Thi Le, Viet Kieu: Recipes remembered from Vietnam (Yvonne C Lam, The Guardian)

Finally …

One children’s book, as far as I could tell, was chosen, and I’ve not included it anywhere else so here it is:

  • Rae White, with Sha’an d’Anthes (illus.), All the colours of the rainbow (Esther Anatolis, ABR)

A few books were named by two people, with two books named by three, Geraldine Brooks’ Memorial days and Melissa Lucashenko’s Not quite white in the head, and one named by four, Helen Garner’s How to end a Story: Collected diaries. Is it a coincidence that these authors have also written fiction? Or that in terms of my reading wishes, they are up there, though several others are in my sights.

Is there any nonfiction in your sights for 2026? After all, Nonfiction November isn’t that far away if this year is any indication!

Monday musings on Australian literature: Favourite books 2025, Pt 1: Fiction and Poetry

/ Whispering Gums / 34 Comments

Around this time of December, I have, for some years, shared favourite Aussie reads of the year from various sources. Those sources have varied a little from time to time. This year’s are listed below.

This is not a scientific survey. For a start, the choosers’ backgrounds vary. Depending on the source, they may include critics, reviewers, commentators, subject specialists, publishers and/or booksellers. Then, there’s the fact that what they are asked to do varies. For example, some pickers are “allowed” to name several books while others are limited to “one” best (or favourite). And of course, they choose from different sets of books, depending on what they have read, and they use different criteria. In other words, this exercise is more serendipitous than authoritative. But, it still has value.

As always, I’m only including the choosers’ Aussie choices, but I include links to the original article/post so you can read them yourselves, should you so wish.

Here are the sources I used:

  • ABC RN Bookshelf (radio broadcaster): Cassie McCullagh, Kate Evans and a panel of bookish guests, Jason Steger (arts journalist and former book editor); Jon Page (bookseller); Robert Goodman (reviewer and literary judge specialising in genre fiction). I only shared their on air picks, not their extras.
  • Australian Book Review (literary journal): selected from many forms by ABR’s reviewers
  • Australian Financial Review (newspaper, traditional and online): shared “the top picks … to add to your holiday reading pile.” 
  • The Conversation (online news source): experts from across the spectrum of The Conversation’s writing so a diverse list.
  • The Guardian (online news source): promotes its list as “Guardian Australia critics and staff pick out the best books of the year”.
  • Readings (independent bookseller): staff “vote” for their favourite books of the year, then Readings shares the Top Ten in various categories.

To keep it manageable, I am focusing here on fiction (including short stories) and poetry, with a separate post on nonfiction, to follow.

Novels

  • Randa Abdel-Fattah, Discipline (Zora Simic, ABR; Clare Wright, ABR)
  • Shokoofeh Azar, The Gowkaran tree in the middle of our kitchen (Edwina Preston, The Conversation)
  • Dominic Amerena, I want everything (Julian Novitz, ABC; Jon Page, ABC; Andrew Pippos, AFR; Jack Callil, The Guardian) (Kate’s review)
  • Marc Brandi, Eden (Robert Goodman, ABC)
  • Paul Daley, The leap (Julie Janson, ABR; Bridie Jabour, The Guardian)
  • Olivia De Zilva, Plastic budgie (Jo Case, The Conversation)
  • Laura Elvery, Nightingale (Readings)
  • Beverley Farmer, The seal woman (1992, rereleased 2025) (Eve Vincent, The Conversation)
  • Jon Fosse, Septology (Marjon Mossammaparast, ABR)
  • Andrea Goldsmith, The buried life (Readings) (my review)
  • Madeleine Gray, Chosen family (Kate Evans, ABC) (Brona’s review)
  • Fiona Hardy, Unbury the dead (Jon Page, ABC; Readings)
  • James Islington, The strength of the few (Tim Byrne, The Guardian)
  • Brandon Jack, Pissants (Readings) (Kate’s review)
  • Toni Jordan, Tenderfoot (Readings)
  • Vijay Khurana, The passenger seat (Beejay Silcox, The Guardian) (Lisa’s review)
  • Sofie Laguna, The underworld (Sian Cain, The Guardian) (on my TBR, see my conversation post)
  • Charlotte McConaghy, Wild dark shore (Julia Feder, AFR) (Brona’s review)
  • Jasmin McGaughey, Moonlight and dust (Allanah Hunt, The Conversation) (See my CWF post)
  • Lay Maloney, Weaving us together (Melanie Saward, The Conversation)
  • Patrick Marlborough, Nock Loose (Jared Richards, The Guardian)
  • Angie Faye Martin, Melaleuca (Sandra Phillips, The Conversation)
  • Jennifer Mills, Salvage (Robert Goodman, ABC; Alice Grundy, The Conversation) 
  • Judi Morison, Secrets (Paul Daley, The Guardian)
  • Rachel Morton, The sun was electric light (Readings; Seren Heyman-Griffiths, The Guardian)
  • Omar Musa, Fierceland (Kate Evans, ABC; Readings; Giselle Au-Nhien Nguyen, The Guardian)
  • Andrew Pippos, The transformations (Jo Case, The Conversation; Cassie McCullagh, ABC; Readings; Zora Simic, ABR)
  • Nicolas Rothwell and Alison Nampitjinpa Anderson, Yilkari: A Desert Suite (Stephen Romei, ABR; John Woinarski, AFR) (on my TBR)
  • Josephine Rowe, Little world (Felicity Plunkett, ABR; Readings; Geordie Williamson, ABR; Fiona Wright, The Conversation) (Lisa’s review)
  • Craig Silvey, Runt and the diabolical dognapping (Jason Steger x 2, ABC and ABR)
  • Jessica Stanley, Consider yourself kissed (Lauren Sams, AFR)
  • Sinéad Stubbins, Stinkbug (Michael Sun, The Guardian)
  • Lenore Thaker, The pearl of Tagai town (Julie Janson, ABR)
  • Madeleine Watts, Elegy, Southwest (Steph Harmon, The Guardian)
  • Sean Wilson, You must remember this (Jason Steger x 2, ABC and ABR) (Kate’s review)

Short stories

  • Tony Birch, Pictures of you: Collected stories (Tony Hughes-d’Aeth, ABR; Julie Janson, ABR; Readings; Geordie Williamson, ABR; BK, The Guardian)
  • Lucy Nelson, Wait here (Marjon Mossammaparast, ABR; Bec Kavanagh, The Guardian)
  • Zoe Terakes, Eros (Dee Jefferson, The Guardian)

Poetry

  • Evelyn Araluen, The rot (Tony Hughes-d’Aeth x 2, ABR and The Conversation; John Kinsella, ABR; Alison Croggon, The Guardian) (on my TBR, see my CWF posts 1 and 2)
  • Eileen Chong, We speak of flowers (Seren Heyman-Griffiths, The Guardian) (Jonathan’s review)
  • Antigone Kefala, Poetry (Marjon Mossammaparast, ABR)
  • Luke Patterson, A savage turn (Felicity Plunkett, ABR; John Kinsella, ABR)
  • Omar Sakr and Safdar Ahmed, The nightmare sequence (Jen Webb, The Conversation)
  • Sara M. Saleh and Zainab Syed with Manal Younus (ed.), Ritual: A collection of Muslim Australian poetry (Esther Anatolis, ABR; Julie Janson, ABR)

Finally …

It’s encouraging to see the increasing diversity in these lists, including (but not only) several First Nations writers, compared with the lists I made just three or four years ago. It’s also interesting to see what books feature most. Popularity doesn’t equal quality, but it does indicate something about what has attracted attention during the year. One book (Tony Birch’s short story collection) was mentioned five times, and three others four times:

  • Tony Birch, Pictures of you (short stories)
  • Dominic Amerena, I want everything
  • Andrew Pippos, The transformations
  • Josephine Rowe, Little world

Of last year’s most mentioned books, several received significant notice at awards time – some winning them – including Michelle de Kretser’s Theory & practice and Fiona McFarlane’s Highway Thirteen.

This year, I read three novels from last year’s (2024) lists, Brian Castro’s Chinese postman, Melanie Cheng’s The burrow, Michelle de Kretser’s Theory & practice.

So, what has caught my eye from this year’s list, besides the one I have read – Andrea Goldsmith’s The buried life – and those on my TBR? Well, many, but in particular Tony Birch’s short story collection. And, I have read Josephine Rowe and Shokoofeh Azar before, so I am keen to read their new books.

If you haven’t seen it you might also like to check out Kate’s list of the top 48 books (from around the world) that appeared on the 54 lists she surveyed.

Thoughts – on this or lists from your neck of the wood?

Kim Kelly, Touched (#BookReview)

/ Whispering Gums / 17 Comments

In 2023, novelist Kim Kelly was one of the two winners of Finlay Lloyd’s inaugural 20/40 Publishing Prize, with her 1920s-set historical novel, Ladies’ Rest and Writing Room (my review). Publisher Julian Davies had hoped at the time to award one fiction and one nonfiction prize, but there was a dearth of good nonfiction entries. That was rectified in 2024, with Sonya Voumard’s book on dystonia, Tremor (my review), being one of the two winners. This year, Kim Kelly returned with a nonfiction work on anxiety, titled Touched: A small history of feeling – and won again.

There is an obvious similarity between these two nonfiction winners, given both deal with medical conditions that impinge significantly on their writers’ lives. However, as quickly becomes apparent, the similarity is superficial, probably due to their writers’ origins. Voumard and Kelly are both published authors with other books to their names, but Voumard is a journalist while Kelly is a novelist, and this I think informs their different approaches to their subject matter.

Finlay Lloyd describes Touched like this:

Why this book is different
Documenting the damaging role of anxiety in our lives is hardly new, but Touched takes us inside the destabilising riot of a three-day panic attack with such insight, honesty and humour that the perspective we gain is revelatory and overwhelmingly hopeful.

Why we liked it
This book has a wonderful breadth of understanding—of the author’s own crazily complex family, of the wider issue of anxiety across society, and of her own voyage as a highly competent yet vulnerable being in a worryingly unhinged world.

Both Voumard and Kelly use a personal narrative arc to frame their discussions. For Voumard it’s the brain surgery she is about to undertake as her book opens, while for Kelly it’s the three-day panic attack she has leading up to her Masters graduation ceremony. Kelly’s focus is this attack. She takes us into it, viscerally. It is the emotional and narrative core of this book. Voumard, on the other hand, weaves her own story through a wider story about dystonia, in which she explores its different forms and treatments through the experiences of others as well as her own. Both writers situate their conditions within a wider societal context, but very differently.

And here I will leave Voumard. After all, she has her own review already!

Kelly starts her book with an (unlabelled) author’s note in which she explains that memory is slippery, so dates and details may not be precise, but “everything in this memoir is true, in essence and in feeling”. I like this, because no-one can remember all the tiny details, and in most cases – crime, excepted – they are not important. What is important is being truthful to the experience, and this, I feel, Kelly achieves.

“It’s exhausting, being human”

Touched is divided into two parts – the lead up to graduation day, and then graduation day and its aftermath. Within these parts are single-word titled chapters starting, logically, with “contact”, and her contradictory responses to “touch”, to how physical touch can settle her but can also produce anxiety when it involves people she doesn’t know well, like, say, hairdressers, doctors and dentists. As for masseurs, no way! But “touched” of course has other meanings, including:

To be in touch, to communicate. To have the touch, a skill at something. To be touched, to be momentarily captured by some sentiment. To live in a vague state of craziness. To feel. Small word, wonderfully big inside its tight dimensions of spelling and sound.(p. 14)

Kelly, who is a book editor as well as a novelist, loves words, so her memoir is written with the eye of someone who is deeply engaged with the meanings of words and how they convey feelings. As graduation day approaches, and she and her partner drive to Sydney for it, she suffers an excruciating panic attack which she describes with a clarity that is revelatory for those like me who have not experienced that degree of psychic distress. At the same time, she looks back to history – including to the Ancient Greeks and philosophers like Aristotle – for ideas on anxiety. And she flashes back to her own past, exploring how and where and why it all began. Her Jewish roots, the experiences of poverty and war in her Irish Catholic tree, the insecurities of her parents, her own childhood fears, and wider societal issues like the imposter syndrome that is particularly common among women, all come into the frame.

It’s not all distress and misery, however, because in between her mulling she shares her wins, her strategies, and her optimistic self that keeps on going. The writing is beautiful, slipping between information-sharing, straight narrative, and light or lyrical, rhythmical moments when she takes a breath and so do we.

Touched is a personal story, and so, by definition, it can be intensely self-focused at times. However, the intensity serves a purpose for those unfamiliar with what anxiety can do. Further, with a keen sense of tone, Kelly regularly reins it in so it never wallows. At the time of her writing, she tells us, around 17% of Australians had experienced some form of anxiety disorder. That’s nearly one in five of us. This book is for all those people – and for the rest of us who know someone who has experienced it, or who might ourselves experience it one day. We just never know. We should thank Kim Kelly for putting herself out there, so beautifully and so honestly.

Read for Novellas in November (as novella-length nonfiction) and Nonfiction November, but not quite finished in time!

Kim Kelly
Touched: A small history of feeling
Braidwood: Finlay Lloyd, 2025
142pp.
ISBN: 9780645927030