A novel of squalor, scandal and breathtaking beauty. A brooding, Goth-historical tale from an outstanding new talent.
Set between 1891 and 1922, 'The White Body Of Evening' is a compelling and thought-provoking debut novel. It focuses on the exploits of a family of true eccentrics - the Walters - as they come to grips with all the horror and hilarity of life.
They roam the alleyways and arcades of old Melbourne - a Gothic labyrinth teeming with brothels, magic shops, fortune tellers, poets and predators - and even flee to the war-torn Europe, all the while trying to make sense of what it means to be urban and Australian. For beyond the respectable facades, beyond the rituals of nation-building and middle-class propriety lies another darker world - one of obsession, derangement, dissipation and crime - and it is this world into which the Walters are drawn.
From Melbourne to Vienna and back again, nothing is quite what it seems - the lure of the perverse is potent and can only climax in one disastrous way …
This is an exceptional novel, a work of intricacy, magic and squalor, at once confronting and entertaining, ribald and elegant. Written with an historian's eye for detail and a painter's love of beauty, it heralds an important new voice in Australian fiction.
