I don’t get it. Writing classes are teeming with prospective novelists yet debut fiction continues to be the wallflower of Australian publishing. Surely some smart young marketing thing dressed in black and wearing horn-rims could put the two together and launch a debut fiction imprint aimed expressly at wannabe fiction writers? When I was a writing student, our class mantra was read more, write more. And what better to read than first-time novelists who have cracked it? Sonia Orchard’s beautifully written and evocative first novel (but not first book) is a case in point. The story of an affair that becomes an obsession, The Virtuoso is an assured and precisely crafted unveiling of postwar bohemian (i.e. gay) London. The narrator is an increasingly fixated alcoholic and possibly second-rate pianist, with an obsession for young real-life Australian virtuoso Noël Mewton-Wood. Extensively researched, The Virtuoso blends fact and fiction, and resonates with the passion and musicality of the great composers the characters love. Meticulous detail about the music scene in Europe at the time, strong and careful writing and a sense of inevitable doom (Mewton-Wood committed suicide in 1953) make The Virtuoso an unhurried but compelling read. It heralds another entry in our growing list of talented new Australian novelists.

Brendan Gullifer’s first novel, Sold, will be published by Sleepers Publishing in 2009

Tags: sonia orchard