There’s plenty to look forward to in Australian fiction publishing in 2020, so time to make room for some new titles on your bookcases. Here are some books I’m personally waiting to hit the shelves:
Arguably the most anticipated novel for 2020 is Trent Dalton’s second effort, All our Shimmering Skies (HarperCollins, June). His first book, Boy Swallows Universe scooped up a slew of awards and charmed readers and a critics alike. Dalton and his publisher would be rightly nervous about the relative success of this follow-up effort, set in Darwin 1942. According to the early press releases its about “motherless Molly Hook, the gravedigger’s daughter, who, along with her travelling companions actress Greta and fallen Japanese fighter pilot Yukio, is seeking out a sorcerer who put a curse on her family.” HarperCollins has waxed lyrical that it’s a story, ‘about gifts that fall from the sky, curses we dig from the earth and the secrets we bury inside ourselves’.
Robbie Arnott also impressed everyone with his debut, Flames, so there will be a lot of expectation that his new title, The Rain Heron, (Text, June) will be equally strange and beguiling. What’s it about? A woman living ‘alone on the remote frontier of a country devastated by a coup’ and but then becomes drawn to the mission of a young soldier who comes into the mountains in search of a local myth. Arnott does good myth so he’ll be sure to do well with the tricky second novel.
I’m also curious about Chris Flynn’s third book, Mammoth (UQP, April) which is indeed, a big undertaking. The narration is ostensibly from the point of view of an American mastodon fossil as it looks back on its life, death and afterlife over a period spanning 13,000 years. Flynn has never been afraid of experimentation and his writing always has flair and energy so if anyone can get away with this far-ranging, eyebrow-raising premise, it’s him. Mammoth’s exploration of extinction and human impact sounds like an ambitious venture, and the POV from a fossil could be either really gimmicky or a stroke of genius.
Speaking of creatures, Laura Jean’s McKay’s The Animals in that Country (Scribe, April), is a spec-fic that imagines a world where humans and animals can understand each other. McKay had previously published a collection of short stories. It’ll be interesting to see how she navigates both a novel-sized effort and a tale that trades on inter-species communication.
These days most authors need to be flexible and versatile with their craft in order to get continuing traction in the publishing world. Alice Pung has written memoir, essays, and YA fiction but One Hundred Days will be her first adult novel. That’s cause for celebration as it is. With as yet unknown release date, Black Inc trumpets that it’s ‘a subtle and poignant meditation on class, gender and ethnicity’ and tracks the path of a teen who falls pregnant and her subsequent fraught relationship with her traditional mother. Pung has written eloquently and pugnaciously about race, class and gender elsewhere so it’s not surprising she will revisit these themes in fictional form.
Award winners are usually a good indicator of talent and so it passes that Hachette has picked up two debuts: Sam Coley’s State Highway (March) and Victoria Hannan’s Kokomo (August). The former (winner of the 2017 Richell Prize for Emerging Author) is a road trip that follows twins who travel the length of New Zealand’s State Highway One in order to reconnect with each other after the unexpected deaths of their parents. The latter (winner of the VPLA Unpublished Manuscript Award in 2019) is about young Mina who returns home to Melbourne after discovering that her agoraphobic mother has left the house for the first time in twelve years. Lest we forget the influence of awards, previous winners of VPLA unpublished manuscript include luminaries as Jane Harper, Maxine Beneba Clarke, Graeme Simsion, Christian White, and Melanie Cheng.
In crime fiction. I’m particularly keen to see the return of two hard-hitters: Dervla McTiernan’s The Good Turn (HarperCollins, March) and JP Pomare’s In the Clearing (Hachette, January). McTiernan’s is the third in her Cormac Reilly series and promises a lot of nimble twists and turns while Pomare’s book about being caught within a cult, looks to be as dark and disturbing as his critically acclaimed debut, Call me Evie.
A novel that has the post punk scene of 80s Melbourne pulsating in the background (think in particular, Nick Caves and the Boys Next Door) will resonate with a lot of Gen X-readers (this one included). Kirsten Krauth’s second book, Almost a Mirror (Transit Lounge, April) evokes the power of music and creativity as well ‘the everyday sacredness of family and friendship in the face of unexpected tragedy’. It’s probably best read to suitably accompanying music.
Finally, as a zealous word nerd I am thrilled to hear that there will be a novel based on the compilation of the first Oxford English Dictionary: Pip Williams’ The Dictionary of Lost Words (Affirm, April). It’s about a girl collecting lost words that’ve been discarded by her father and his team of lexicographers who are putting together the OED. Publisher Martin Hughes enthuses that it will ‘enthral anyone who loves language’ and I am ready to believe him.
