Description
Book SynopsisEliza travels to Sydney to deal with the estate of her Aunt Dodge, and finds Maxine, a hitherto unknown cousin, occupying Dodge’s apartment. When legal complications derail plans to live it up on their inheritance, the women’s lives become consumed by absurd attempts to deal with Australian tax law, as well their own mounting boredom and squalor. The most astonishing debut novel of the decade, Dodge Rose calls to mind Henry Green in its skewed use of colloquial speech, Joyce in its love of inventories, and William Gaddis in its virtuoso lampooning of law, high finance, and national myth.
Trade ReviewWith so many factors at play in relatively few pages, somehow, this densely allusive, rich and unusual anti-novel retains at all times a sense of fun while remaining a gratifyingly challenging read.
* The Guardian *
This young Australian has evidently made a close study of James Joyce and Samuel Beckett (and maybe of Henry Green) — and sets out in his first novel to recover and extend their enchantments.
* The Millions *
Brilliant and dark, mysterious and immediate, moving and maddening, disturbing and entertaining, this extraordinary first novel compacts the histories of a continent and a family into a dazzle of two hundred pages.
* Times Literary Supplement *
