"The Son of A Certain Woman. You don’t have to have read Joyce to 'get' it. But it’s a touch more fun if you have." And that is because it is Wayne Johnston's "Joyce book". Which one might take to mean that it's about the Joyce family. (Primarily about Percy
The cover image for Anthony De Sa's Kicking the Sky perfectly encapsulates the novel's themes, structure, setting and tone.* A child's bicycle leans against a garage door, the only sign of habitation. The view of the alleyway leaves the safety of home beyond the edges of the scene. The shadows are
Reading Hellgoing makes me wonder about Lynn Coady's personal relationships. Not for the obvious reasons that other readers might identify, stories like "Body Condom" and "Play the Monster Blind". But because I imagine that in order to write a short story, she disappears for a spell. I imagine she crawls
Three for three: I've read all three of Stacey May Fowles' novels straight-through. It just happened. But although it was true of Be Good and Fear of Fighting, I was prepared to take my time with Infidelity, an emotionally exhausting subject. But, then, it happened again. Perhaps it simply comes down
Perhaps it's only to give readers an idea of how special it all was to Charlie. "I suppose what I'm trying to say is that the writing of a man's life at least gives you an idea of just how special it all was to him the first time around."
