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by Boomert - Wonders of a Godless World by Andrew McGahan 06 Jan 2010
A fable, an allegory, an exploration of the innermost secrets of both the universe and the mind. Andrew McGahan has once again proved himself to be a chameleon of story telling with his latest book, Wonders of a Godless World, itself a wonder of imagination and discovery. It is as much a journey for the reader as it is for the unnamed orphan girl whose startling presence illuminates this very original tale. I am being deliberately obtuse here as so much of the journey is about the shock of the new. The action takes place on a timeless island where the wordless orphan works as a cleaner in a hospital for the insane. Her constant companions are known only as the duke, the virgin, the witch and the archangel. Into her world is wheeled the comatose foreigner with whom the orphan can communicate. And looming over all of them is the malevolent presence of a brooding volcano. McGahan is a conjuror-- this magical tale of the orphan and the foreigner is utterly original and has its own confounding logic as it hurtles the reader to the edge of the universe and beyond. This is a book whose questions and propositions echo long after its final pages are read.

This review from Australian Bookseller & Publisher magazine (October 2009, Vol 89, No. 3) is reproduced by kind permission of Thorpe-Bowker, a division of R R Bowker LLC. © Copyright 2009, Thorpe-Bowker.

Author Biography: Andrew McGahan
Andrew McGahan's first novel, Praise (1992), was winner of The Australian/Vogel Literary Award. He is also the author of the novels 1988 and Last Drinks. In 2004, The White Earth was published and went on to win the Miles Franklin Literary Award.

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