Love and Desire is a collection of four novellas from up-and-coming Australian writers; a glimpse of some of the fresh new talent in Australian writing. Paddy O’Reilly brings the most experience to the book with a novel and soon-to-be-released collection of short stories The End of the World (see review, page XX) under her belt. Her novella ‘Deep Water’ is a gem: the story of a big, unruly family whose life is thrown off-kilter by the death of the mother. Ellen Rodger’s ‘The Girls’ Room’ is also excellent: a fragmented account of a young suburban sex worker’s encounters with her clients and co-workers. Excerpts of ‘The Girls’ Room’ have already been published in several other anthologies. The final two novellas are engaging, if a little less subtly crafted. Margaret Innes’ Meanjin/Readings Novella Competition-winning ‘China’ describes the disintegration of a woman’s marriage and Christopher Currie’s ‘Dearly Departed’ the bittersweet end of a first love. Fans of Tim Winton and David Malouf’s short story collections would do well to give these newcomers a try.

Andrea Hanke is assistant editor of BOOKSELLER+PUBLISHER

This review from Australian Bookseller & Publisher magazine is reproduced by kind permission of Thorpe-Bowker, a division of R R Bowker LLC. © Copyright 2008, Thorpe-Bowker

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