Loveland, by Robert Lukins
Fiction, Allen & Unwin, $32.99
Loveland is a gripping and masterful novel about two women, decades apart. In the modern time, May escapes an abusive marriage in Brisbane to claim her inheritance: a decaying boathouse on a poisoned lake in Nebraska. In 1956, that house is the home of her grandmother Casey, a prisoner of her own violent husband. It’s unusual to read a novel in which women are abused but not defined by it; it’s refreshing that these women – with their fury, complexity and, in May’s case, wonderful wit – were written by a man. As our critic Beejay Silcox writes in her forthcoming review, Lukins gives them dignity; he “understands that it is not necessary to hurt women to prove how women are hurt”. – Steph Harmon
Son of Sin, by Omar Sakr
Fiction, Affirm Press, $29.99
Omar Sakr’s poetry collection the Lost Arabs won him the 2020 Prime Minister’s Literary Award – and his talent as a poet infuses every vivid character and scene in his debut novel. At its core, Son of Sin is a coming-of-age novel about Jamal: a Lebanese-Australian discovering he’s attracted to men, while growing up within the cultural confines of his Muslim community in western Sydney, amid national headlines dominated by racism and a family torn by trauma. Jamal is looking for belonging, first in western Sydney and later in Lebanon, through worlds and relationships drawn from Sakr’s experience, and painted with such warmth, humour and life you can feel them. – Steph Harmon
The Idea of Australia: A search for the soul of a nation, by Julianne Schultz
Non-fiction, Allen & Unwin, $34.99
What is the idea of Australia? Do Australians have a collective soul? No small subject, this, but Julianne Schultz traverses far and wide across Australia’s intellectual, cultural and political landscape to tell the story of the nation. Looking both backwards and forth, she delves into the conflicting perspectives that have characterised our national psyche. Are we for a fair go or are we mean and insular? If we continue to tell ourselves lies about our past, can we be optimistic about the future? Beautifully written with a personal touch, it’s a deeply thoughtful and provocative biography of a country. – Lucy Clark
The Teeth of a Slow Machine, by Andrew Roff
Short stories, Wakefield Press, $29.95
Andrew Roff’s debut collection is lightly interlinked, tapping into the news (from Covid to offshore detention) and unafraid to take risks with voice and form. The result – though sometimes uneven – is dark and funny. There’s a story in code, one inside a video game, a hard-boiled noir about a sinister fried-chicken conglomerate … The Adelaide writer’s day job is as a lawyer, and his work is laced with the obscenities of corporate life, but also with wrenching intimacy: tired people trying to connect and stay afloat. It’s bleak, technological and tender: an Australian George Saunders, maybe. I’m interested to see what he’ll do next. – Imogen Dewey
Triple Helix: My donor-conceived story, by Lauren Burnes
Memoir, UQP, $32.99
Can you miss someone you’ve never met? In Triple Helix, aeronautical engineer Lauren Burns comprehensively answers this question with a sense of yearning that is beautifully elucidated. Discovering at 21 that she was donor-conceived, Burns’s provenance immediately became a puzzle. Her biological father was known only as C11, and she had no legal right to discovery. Writing with the sensibility of a novelist, Burns embarks on a personal quest to overturn the law which ultimately takes her to the revelation that she is from a well-known Australian family. On the way she explores the idea of connection and belonging at a molecular level, literally. – Lucy Clark
Auē, by Becky Manawatu
Fiction, Scribe, $32.99
The word auē is a Maori verb to cry, howl, groan, wail, bawl and yes, yes, yes, yes and yes, you may do all of these things when reading Becky Manawatu’s incredibly assured debut novel. Small word, big emotions – and the perfect title for a book that deals in deceptively simple narration and oceanic feeling. Set within one family caught in the teeth of intergenerational gang violence, Manawatu elicits compassion from ugly places, and threads through redemptive spiritual beauty, and innocence, too, via alternating voices. Yes it’s not technically an Australian release, but it’s finally coming out here after being a bestseller in New Zealand and winning multiple awards. More are likely to come. – Lucy Clark
