Category: Literary Fiction Reviews

A review of City of Glass by Paul Auster

There is a play on names that runs through this book like a fugue. The putative writer of the book Paul Auster will prove to be another, a writer whose name is not given. Peter is the name of Quinn’s…

A review of A Gun for Sale by Graham Greene

The prose has a deliberate hard-boiled rhythm (the novel’s opening sentences – “Murder didn’t mean much to Raven. It was just a new job. You had to be careful…” – illustrates this as well as anything) and the suspense is…

A review of You Are Going Away edited by Matthew Ward

Most of the stories, and particularly the three winners, have all of those qualities: are tightly structured with a conflict that pulls the reader in and drives the narrative forward, leading carefully and conclusively towards the ending. Interestingly, a large…

A review of Arthur & George by Julian Barnes

Barnes has clearly done a tremendous amount of research, and even a reader who comes to this work without the slightest knowledge of Arthur Conan-Doyle will leave with a good understanding of the key events in his life, from his…

A review of The Best Australian Stories 2005

This is an accessible collection with stories that almost always add up to something which wasn’t there before. The economy and careful construction of this work is one which a serious reader will appreciate–Moorhouse has chosen well–but overall, what is…