Accessibility Tools

  • Content scaling 100%
  • Font size 100%
  • Line height 100%
  • Letter spacing 100%

Erina Reddan

Houses of unreason

by •
June 2021, no. 432

Is it tautological to describe a work of fiction as ‘family Gothic’? After all, there’s nothing more inherently Gothic than the family politic: a hierarchical structure ruled by a patriarch, as intolerant of transgression as it is fascinated by it, sustaining itself through a clear us/them divide, all the while proclaiming, ‘The blood is the life.’ Yet three new Australian novels Gothicise the family politic by exaggerating, each to the point of melodrama, just how dangerous a family can become when its constituents turn against one another.

... (read more)

Pickle to Pie by Glenice Whitting & The Whisper of Leaves by K.S. Nikakis

by •
April 2008, no. 300
Christina Hill, George Dunford and Jo Case review three books

In Glenice Whitting’s début novel, a dying man, Frederick, recalls his childhood in Footscray from before World War I to the end of his life at the close of the twentieth century. The theme is the split identity of an Australian-born man who has strong connections to his German heritage. His formative influence is his charismatic grandmother who raises him when he is rejected by his mother. This remains the centre of his personality even when, as he grows older, he craves acceptance as an Australian. Frederick is more like a first-generation immigrant than a second, especially as the grandmother names him Frederick Joseph Heinrich Frank Fritschenburg, a name destined to become a burden in his childhood as Australia succumbs to rabid anti-German propaganda during World War I. A similar predicament impels the family to change their name to Fraser.

... (read more)