“All American abduction stories are alike,” declares Aura, formerly a professor of Latin American literature and now one of the dozens of people abducted⎯ snatched, caged, shipped away⎯ over the course of this novel (for lack of a better word), in which every brief chapter features a miniature tragedy of separation, violent and heartbreaking, and yet each also offers some kind of talking cure, some gab-fest, though rarely face to face, rather via phone or chatbot, and in this way every brief chapter spins the core atrocity in a kaleidoscope, and the widening circle of shattered survivors all prove Aura wrong, their pieces fall into fresh combination of shapes and colors, a different look, and no one ever lacks for a wisecrack, either, boy can they talk (or type), until every brief chapter becomes a conversational fractal that unfolds like this sentence: one long, strange run-on.
Set between the 16th and 22nd centuries, The Annual Banquet of the Gravediggers’ Guild is a work of political comedy, fixated on class, climate, food, wine, and the afterlife.
Arguably Australia’s most celebrated living author, Helen Garner has built a reputation as a fearless and unapologetic writer whose work has remained fresh and relevant for over 45 years. By Paul Mitchell