Synopses & Reviews
From the “world-class Australian novelist” (
The New York Times) comes a deft, angular, and highly entertaining collection of stories. “The Seduction of My Sister” tells of the increasingly bizarre events between siblings when a new family moves in across the street, while “Healing” recalls a vanished time when a boys headlong, innocent rush into certain disaster could be averted by a simple miracle. A man named Huebler decides to photograph everyone alive, and an unassuming piano-tuner is sent to the center of Australia in 1943 to contribute to the war effort. A captivating, piquant collection from a master of the craft.
Review
“[The stories] glow with a radioactive cleverness...its great fun to watch them sparkle and fizz...into glorious full-color weirdness...Marvelous.” —
The New York Times Book Review“Darkly comic...[Bail] resists, by sheer force of invention, the drag of glib moralizing on suburban lifelessness.” —The Washington Post Book World
“[An] entertaining collection...a cross between Orwell and Kafka...reminiscent of Bernard Malamud at his most inspired...Exquisite work from a most unusual master craftsman whos one of his continents finest writers.” —Kirkus Reviews
“An illuminating, dexterously written collection.” —Publishers Weekly
About the Author
Murray Bail has won numerous prizes for his novels—
Eucalyptus,
Homesickness, and
Holdens Performance—including the Commonwealth Writers Prize for
Eucalyptus. He lives in Sydney, Australia.