With launches and author events cancelled around the country, a virtual launch is a good way to introduce new fiction to readers of ANZ Litlovers.
So I am pleased to introduce a new novel by author Gay Lynch, an associate in Creative Writing and English at Flinders University who publishes essays, hybrid memoir, novels, articles and short stories. Her first novel, Cleanskin, was published in 2005. Long-time resident of rural SA, she now lives in Melbourne.
This is the blurb:
The unsettled South Australian frontier near Mount Gambier is a strange and difficult place for a Galway family trying to make sense of their new world.
Rosanna and brother Skelly long to escape. Their older brother Edwin races against poets in steeplechases and schemes over cattle, carts and cards to get ahead. They are all half in love with a visiting priest and a disturbing Irish play about their ancestors.
When she goes to work at a nearby station, Rosanna is caught up in a string of events – throwing a horserace, the allure of a visiting actor, violent threats to her Boandik friends, and the wreck of the Admella – that lead to a reckoning with the land, its histories, its religions and its ancient and recent cultures.
Unsettled is fearless and exuberant, playful and erudite, an Australian classic in the making.
Early readers have this to say:
- ‘Spellbinding historical fiction, offering fresh insight into a 19th century past which unsettles our present’ —Laura Bloom
- ‘Passionate and uncompromising … brilliantly evoking the complexities of early Australian settlement.’ — Danielle Clode
You can also read the review by Professor Frances Devlin-Glass for Tintean.
Unsettled is available now from Fishpond: Unsettled and direct from Ligature.
AUD$34.99 Paperback + E-book; $11.99 E-book
ISBN: 9781925883237
ANZ LitLovers LitBlog 
Thank you. And on my list it goes!
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By: Jennifer on March 23, 2020
at 12:26 pm
I have this coming to me for review!
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By: Theresa Smith Writes on March 23, 2020
at 8:08 pm
I wanted to review it, because it sounds quite intriguing, but I really can’t accept anything new until my eyes are back to normal (or what passes for normal for my eyes). I’m wondering now about how my new reading glasses will get made: I can’t even get a prescription until things settle, but when it does, I usually get the best German lenses and I don’t know (a) whether they’ll still be in production in Germany (b) whether they can get imported when all the airlines are shutting up shop and (c) whether our own local spectacle makers will still be operational. At the moment I’m getting by with those cheap magnifying glasses from the chemist, but they are hopeless really because there is such a difference between my ‘bad’ eye and my ‘good eye’.
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By: Lisa Hill on March 23, 2020
at 8:34 pm
Oh no! How trying! And something I never even spared a thought for with closed borders, etc. There will be so many things like that.
I really feel for you not being able to see well.
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By: Theresa Smith Writes on March 23, 2020
at 9:28 pm
There are compensations. I watched Sophie’s Choice on SBS today, a film I always meant to see…
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By: Lisa Hill on March 23, 2020
at 10:44 pm
I haven’t ever watched that one either!
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By: Theresa Smith Writes on March 23, 2020
at 10:52 pm
As you know, Lisa, I have now read this book, and found it a wonderfully thoughtful read, and an engaging one because of the characters. I really enjoyed her use of real people from history (some of whom I didn’t know before) as well as fictional ones.
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By: whisperinggums on October 19, 2020
at 9:43 am
Thanks, Sue, I’ll add a link to your review when I have a moment to spare…
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By: Lisa Hill on October 19, 2020
at 11:11 am
I understand completely!
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By: whisperinggums on October 19, 2020
at 11:22 am