May: Bright shiny new books to love

It's festival season and always time to celebrate new stories and new writers

May 27, 2024

Well hello!

Welcome to the May edition of New Voices Down Under. Here in Australia, we are in the thick of festival season with the highlight this past week being the Sydney Writers Festival. If social media coverage is anything to go by, American writers Bonnie Garmus (debut author of the global phenomenon Lessons in Chemistry) and perennial favourite Ann Patchett have wowed audiences, as have many writers across a broad range of subjects and interests. The ABC program, Compass, will air an interview with Bonnie Garmus this coming Sunday night (2 June) at 6.30pm AEST, so if you couldn’t make it to the festival this year, this is a chance to catch up on one event and see what all the fuss is about.

In the meantime, this month’s Books to Love features reviews of two new titles. We meet author Avi Duckor-Jones as he talks about his debut coming of age novel, Max. If that name seems familiar, Duckor-Jones was also the winner of the first series of Survivor New Zealand, And yes, I did got there! You also have a chance to win a copy of Max as our May giveaway.

If you’re keen to know who are the shining lights of Australian new voices, this week saw the announcement of the Sydney Morning Herald 2024 Best Young Australian Novelists. These three authors join a growing list of some of this country’s most interesting and influential novelists. Well done!

Happy Publication Month!

Congratulations to all these hard-working debut authors of novels, short stories and memoir. May your books fly off the shelves.

Books to Love

Bright Objects by Ruby Todd

(Published 30 April 2024 ANZ, 16 July USA)

Sylvia Knight spends her days working at Bells Funerals, tending to the recently bereaved, a job she is uniquely suited to as she is one of them. On that fateful night in January 1995, she and her husband, Chris, were returning to their hometown of Jericho when a car swerved onto the wrong side of the road killing Chris. She herself also died, albeit temporarily, and has been left to deal with the scars and the failure of the police to find the hit and run driver who ruined her life.

Two years later, the small town of Jericho is the centre of international attention as a newly discovered comet, Comet St John, is approaching earth and Jericho is where it will shine brightest. This is, literally, a once in a lifetime opportunity as the comet will not enter earth’s orbit for another 800 years. To add to the excitement, the discoverer of said comet, American Theo St John, is currently based at the observatory outside town. Sylvia feels drawn to Theo, as he does her, and their relationship is more than just physical attraction. Around them, the townspeople whip themselves into a frenzy of excitement. The bakery makes comet-shaped cookies, telescopes sell out, the supermarket runs out of canned goods and all sorts of people begin descending on the town. At its centre is the self-styled leader of a quasi-religious group called Kingdom Come, whose leader is planning a festival to celebrate the arrival of Comet St John. But through all this, Sylvia is still pursuing the man she believes is responsible for the car accident that killed Chris. She knows who he is but bringing him to justice has proven impossible. The past haunts her and she’s not the only one who hopes that the arrival of the comet will change her fortunes.

Ruby Todd’s Bright Objects is a darkly atmospheric novel about grief, loss and betrayal. Sylvia is a woman who feels the guilt of living when her husband so tragically died. The accident might not have been her fault but she was at the wheel. Working at Bells Funerals is as much about connection as it is about paying her dues. Her relationship with Theo is also tinged with guilt. She struggles to justify her attraction to him when she is still so recently widowed. He too seems to struggle with his attraction to her and reluctant to pursue a relationship. Between them is her obsession with bringing the hit and run driver to justice. Blinded by grief, she pursues a course of action that threatens to destroy her rather than her intended target. Underpinning all of this is the comet itself. The bright object of the title feels that it is arriving full of portent yet it is only passing through. The fixation on the deeper meaning of this celestial object creates a certain mania in the town and none more so than those caught in the thrall of Kingdom Come’s charismatic leader. In a way, St Johns Comet is a portent because it is the comet’s arrival that forces Sylvia to reckon with fate, grief and love. Bright Objects is a gently funny novel, with a secret at its heart that draws you in. The writing is lyrical and clever with a story that orbits not around a comet but around Sylvia’s journey to make peace with her past and accept that life is, after all, ambiguous and filled with possibilities.

A little bit about the author …

Ruby Todd is a Melbourne-based writer with a PhD in writing and literature. She is the recipient of the 2019 Ploughshares Emerging Writer's Contest award for Fiction and the inaugural 2020 Furphy Literary Award, among others. Her work has appeared in Ploughshares, Crazyhorse, Overland and elsewhere. Shortlisted for the 2023 Victorian Premier's Unpublished Manuscript Award, Bright Objects is her debut novel.

Connect with Ruby Todd

Australia & NZ: Buy the book here

USA Available July 16 — Preorder here

The Story Thief by Kyra Geddes

(Published 30 April 2024, ANZ)

Lillian was born at the end of the 19^th century and grew up in hardship west of Bourke. Her father was a drover leaving her mother to raise the children and keep the farm running. After prolonged drought, a savage bushfire killed Lillian’s family. Her father’s employer takes pity on her and arranges for her to attend the school, Sacred Heart in Sydney’s prosperous eastern suburbs. Here Lillian is exposed to a hitherto unknown world, not only of riches but and social connection and education. When their teacher reads them Henry Lawson’s The Drover’s Wife, Lillian is immediately struck by the startling similarities between her family’s story and that told by Lawson. Convinced he must have met her dead mother, she writes to Lawson but to no avail. Questions plague her about why Lawson named the sons and the dog yet not the wife and daughters. Why had he denied this drover’s wife her identity and claimed the story as his own? Obsessed with Lawson, Lillian keeps a scrapbook of any mention of the man. In the process, she discovers the history of his mother, Louisa who was also a prolific published writer and a driver of the suffrage movement.

The Story Thief follows Lillian over the course of her life and through some of the great and fateful moments in Australian history as the colonies become a nation. From women’s suffrage and through two world wars, Geddes expands on themes of identity—national and personal. Lillian becomes a teacher, marries well and has children yet she cannot shake her sense of displacement having lost all those dearest to her, who are also the only ones who know the story of her formative years. Her struggle to make peace with the past infiltrates her relationship with her children and husband. In the end, Lillian must decide whether to be held captive by the narrative of stories told by men or to relinquish her misgivings and embrace the life she has.

Geddes has clearly undertaken an immense amount of research in bringing her novel The Story Thief to fruition. She reflects on the history that is written about the formation of this nation and those whose stories are absent or underplayed in that narrative. From art to literature, politics, science and society at large, The Story Thief is a sweeping tale that asks the question, whose story is it to tell. This is definitely a novel for lovers of historical fiction in general and a fresh take on the Australian history of the last century.

A little bit about the author …

Born in Adelaide as the daughter of German immigrants, Kyra Geddes spent her infancy in the South Australian opal fields before moving to Sydney. Following a successful career in marketing, Kyra returned to university to study English and pursue her life-long dream of writing, publishing two short stories and earning the Vice-Chancellor's Award for Academic Excellence. The Story Thief is her debut novel, and the culmination of almost a decade of research and writing. When not at her desk, Kyra can often be found visiting one of Sydney's many art galleries or daydreaming about future travel.

Connect with Kyra Geddes

Instagram and Facebook @kyrageddes

Australia & NZ: Buy a copy of the book here

Avi Duckor-Jones trained as a lawyer before gaining his MA in creative writing from Victoria University's International Institute of Modern Letters in 2013. His travel writing has been published with BBC Travel, the New Zealand Listener and Lonely Planet, among others. Avi has worked as a writing instructor and trip leader for National Geographic, directed a school in Ghana, and is the winner of the reality television competition Survivor New Zealand. His first book, Swim, won the 2018 Viva la Novella award. He currently lives on Waiheke Island with his wife and two children, where he enjoys open-water distance swimming and works as an English teacher at Waiheke High School.

A little bit about the book …

Max is about to finish high school. On the surface it appears he has everything, but underneath he is floundering. Grappling with questions about his birth parents and his sexuality, he feels that there is a seed of badness deep within him that will inevitably be exposed. After an incident at the end-of-year party sets Max's world to crumbling, he must finally figure out who he is and where he came from – and who he is allowed to love.

Can you tell us a little about the inspiration behind this story?

I’ve wrestled with dualities my whole life. For as long as I can remember, I’ve tried to weave together my (seemingly) disparate and conflicting parts into an understandable whole. This has manifested in most aspects of my life, but I was finally confronted with a pressure to choose when I came back to New Zealand after many years away. It felt that some choices needed to be made, instead of flitting between selves as I ricochet across the globe. This was a terrifying thing. From all the versions I’d been, all the lives I’d lived, I felt a great pressure to finally choose. However, by choosing one, I felt an immense loss for the paths and people and versions I didn’t. This idea of holding multitudes still felt impossible. So, I started writing Max, to try and answer the question: How can we accept that we contain multitudes and love the complex dualities instead of fighting to integrate them?

During this time, I was working as a high school English teacher in Auckland, completing a Masters in Teaching and Educational Leadership. In my students I saw the same tension I’d felt in adolescence. There seemed to be this anxiety about who to be, and what was needed to fulfil the excruciating need to belong. It felt natural then, to place Max at high school, when those internal conflicts and dualities feel so alive and urgent and confronting.

Max is a beautifully rendered story about a young man on a journey to discover who he really is, what makes him him. You work as an English teacher, I wondered how much of Max’s story came from the stories you saw unfolding around you in the classroom. Or perhaps another way to put it, what questions were you seeing that you felt you needed answers to?

I think the need to write Max came from seeing my own experience replayed, decades later, in my students. This same uncertainty of the grey areas within us and the fear and shame when those areas don't align with societal expectation. I wanted then to give voice to the characters I wanted to hear from back then, who didn’t feel aligned to the societal expectation, and felt a bit lost in the wild. It was about writing a broader experience that my students could relate to and to celebrate the unknowing.

It is interesting how, as readers, we are perennially drawn to coming-of-age stories. Why do you think this is?

It’s something we can all identify with. In adolescence there is a great need to cross a threshold through rites of passage. It is something seen throughout the animal kingdom. All animals must learn how to protect themselves against predation and face the wide world on their own. However, initiation into adulthood in modern times, outside the context of older traditions, often means drugs, alcohol, reckless driving and dangerous sexual encounters. It is a time of life when we are so fearless, so vulnerable, seemingly invincible that of course we are drawn to these narratives. They are exciting, we identify, and we know what is at stake.

I can’t let you go without asking about that one particular experience — winning Survivor New Zealand. Full credit to you! Do you see any parallels between what I guess is the preparation, discipline and mental resilience to undertake such a challenge and your writing life.

I suppose I can draw parallels between the two when I think of the tenacity and perseverance necessary for both. However, Survivor was a very focussed 40 days. There was one goal. For me, writing a novel has been a different experience among the demands of parenthood and teaching. I’ve had to find those early morning and late-night pockets to fit in around all the other aspects of my life.

I suppose one similarity between winning Survivor and writing this novel has been the listening and noticing required for both. To write, you must observe and understand and listen to how people act, react, speak, move. Same on Survivor. I had to constantly read the room and adjust accordingly! I suppose that is one benefit of holding multitudes, the art of adaptability and camouflage needed in order to succeed in social situations. In that sense, the very thing I’ve wrestled with my whole life, may have been the very thing that led to my winning.

To WIN a copy of Max, scroll down to Freebies

Connect with Avi Duckor-Jones

Instagram and Facebook @aviduckorjones

Australia and NZ: Buy a copy of the book here

Freebies!!

If you enjoyed the interview with Avi Duckor-Jones, then this is your chance to win a copy of Max. Thanks to Affirm Publishing for providing us with **two** copies to giveaway. All you have to do is send a reply email with the answer to this very tricky question.

At what point in his life is the novel Max set?

The fine print: Giveaways are currently only open to subscribers and you must reside within Australia to be eligible to win (postage!) The winners will be picked at random and will be emailed on Tuesday 18 June 2024. Good luck!

Newbie News

Congratulations to the three authors named The Sydney Morning Herald’s 2024 Best Young Australian Novelists — André Dao, Emily O’Grady and John Morrissey. We reviewed Morrissey’s collection of short stories, Firelight, in a recent edition of New Voices Down Under here. According to this article in last weekend’s SMH, Emily O’Grady’s fantastic second novel, Feast, was inspired by a nightmare about Tilda Swinton and Nick Cave as vampires paired together for eternity in a decadently Gothic mansion. I loved Feast and if you’d like to know more about this fantastic novel, you can read my (very brief) review over here. Last but by no means least, André Dao’s debut Anam has also been named on the 2024 Miles Franklin longlist.

Established in 1997 by The Sydney Morning Herald‘s then literary editor, Susan Wyndham, the Best Young Australian Novelist award recognises emerging writers and is open to writers aged 35 and younger at the time their novel or short story collection is published. Previous winners include Gillian Mears, Hannah Kent, Christos Tsiolkas and Craig Silvey.

The End

And here we are at the end of another edition of the newsletter. I hope some of the books discussed have tickled your fancy. Please leave a comment, follow us on socials and come back again next month where there will be more bookish news, reviews, interviews and freebies. See you soon!

Don’t forget, you can always catch up with us on Instagram @newvoicesdownunder

And, if you’d like to subscribe to Meredith’s author newsletter, you can subscribe to A Cuppa With Meredith here The next edition is out Friday 5 June!