As part of the media hubbub around the Miles Franklin shortlist — which is entirely new territory for me — you can now find brief review of the six shortlisted titles at the ABC’s Arts portal. Here’s Sarah L’Estrange on At the Edge of the Solid World:
This novel does not bend to easy summation. On the surface it is about a man crippled by grief after the death of his newborn. But where other novels might cleave to a story of domestic drama — indeed his marriage does disintegrate — this one cleverly plumbs his inner world as he searches to understand this grief within the limitations of language and shared experience. … The narrator’s peripatetic mind investigates historical figures who’ve also grappled with loss and displacement, and the reader must tussle with the overlay of meanings this intellectually sophisticated novel animates.
Infinite Patience 