Category Archives: Books
Books
Extract: Jessie Cole’s Darkness on the Edge of Town
We’re delighted to run an extract from KYD alumnus Jessie Cole’s debut novel (Jessie’s story ‘The Wake’ appeared in KYD No. 8). Titled Darkness on the Edge of Town, the novel tells the story of Vincent and his teenage daughter, Gemma, after a stranger crashes her car outside their … Read more
Books, Reviews
Patroclus Now: Madeline Miller’s The Song of Achilles
A novel based on Homer’s The Iliad that wins one of the highest literary accolades can expect a lot of attention. On a first read, debut novelist Madeline Miller’s The Song of Achilles, the 2012 Orange Prize winner, was disappointing. Those expecting the depth and intricacy of … Read more
Books, Classics, Reviews
Castaways, convicts and cannibals: Patrick White’s A Fringe of Leaves
Why do we read Patrick White? The answer, ‘because he won a Nobel Prize’ is not sufficient in itself. If it were, we’d read Vicente Aleixandre, Jaroslav Seifert and Wislawa Szymborska. But by and large, we don’t. Nor do many of us read White. No doubt some … Read more
Books, Reviews
Stumbling into adulthood: Paul D. Carter’s Eleven Seasons
I have a confession: I know nothing about football. So it’s a good thing this year’s Australian/Vogel’s Literary Award winner for an unpublished manuscript is about more than just that. Paul D. Carter’s Eleven Seasons is a grunge-era bildungsroman, an homage to working-class Melbourne and one young … Read more
Books, E-News, giveaway
E-news giveaway: Things That Are Found in Trees and Other Stories
Thanks to Margaret River Press, Kill Your Darlings is giving away a copy of Things That Are Found in Trees and Other Stories. ‘This compact, elegantly printed and bound collection edited by master-storyteller Richard Rossiter’ (William Yeoman, The West Australian) contains winning entries from the inaugural 2011 Margaret River Short Story Competition. To … Read more
Books, Reviews
Anytime, anywhere? Reviewing Penguin and A&U digital shorts
With the ubiquity of smartphones and e-readers, and the wealth of content available to us – from podcasts to video on demand – it was inevitable that publishers would publish (and require) more from writers. To appease the busy, mobile and insatiable e-masses, following on from similar … Read more
Books, Reviews
Savour every word: Emily Perkins’ The Forrests
Emily Perkins is one of those rare writers who demands that the reader savour every word – at her pace. She tells a story of love and misfortune at once so original and universal that even impatient readers daren’t skip a line. Read each sentence carefully, because … Read more
Books, Reviews
Not so sweet, girly or soft: Riikka Pulkkinen’s True
Not far into Riikka Pulkkinen’s True, Anna is at work tidying the bookshelves when she realises, ‘Almost every novel has a love story, a description of love beginning’. Anna, so heartbroken she recently spent eleven days lying on the floor of her apartment, is no stranger to … Read more
Books
Bangkok stash: chasing the literary dragon in Thailand
Even in Chiang Mai, Thailand’s cultural capital, which is Lonely Planet famous for having more second-hand bookshops than pubs, my search for Thai literature in English translation seemed hopeless. I’m here on an Asialink residency, the perfect excuse to indulge my interest in world literature. I eventually … Read more
Books, Reviews
This is a positive review of Ryan O’Neill’s short story collection The Weight of a Human Heart
The final story in Ryan O’Neill’s debut collection, ‘The Eunuch in the Harem’, plays out in a series of book reviews. A newly minted author has his book slammed by a reviewer, and, on the basis of her beauty in the author photo, the reviewer begins courting the author’s wife as well. Read more
