Lucy has always used stories about her extraordinary family as material for her one woman shows. Her mother was afraid of water and shampoo, ate only cream-cheese and raspberry cordial and refused to let Judith go swimming or turn off any appliances.
This is Helen Garner’s first novel in 15 years, though it could as easily sit with her formidable body of essays and nonfiction such as Joe Cinque’s Consolation with its familiar personal and direct subject matter and style.
When Hannah Heath gets a call in the middle of the night in her Sydney home about a precious medieval manuscript which has been recovered from the smouldering ruins of war-torn Sarajevo, she knows she is on the brink of the experience of a lifetime.