Synopses & Reviews
Superb -- and surprising -- new fiction from the Australian masterA man named Huebler decides to photograph everyone alive. A suburban father perches in his son's tree house to spy on his friends. A dentist recognizes his estranged wife in a famous painting. "The Seduction of My Sister" tells of the increasingly bizarre events involving a boy and his sister when a new family moves in across the street. And in "Camouflage," Eric Banerjee, an unassuming Adelaide piano tuner, is sent north to the center of Australia in 1943 to make his contribution to the war effort. It is clear in all these remarkable stories that Murray Bail -- already celebrated for his novels -- has also extended the manifold possibilities of short fiction. Each of his stories creates a strange and fascinating new world, and none of them is easily forgotten. Bail's work in this collection is deft, angular, and very entertaining; the mastery of his art is fully revealed with wry humor and haunting power.
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
Synopsis
It is clear in all these remarkable stories that Murray Bail--celebrated for his novels--has also extended the manifold possibilities of short fiction. Each of his stories creates a strange and fascinating new world, and none of them is easily forgotten.
Synopsis
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.
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.