A reader can get quite a bit of pleasure out of the novels listed for this year’s Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards by getting into the mindset of three local characters.
One is a contemporary artist with a global following, the other is a shy English student living in ‘80s St Kilda and the third is a feisty rabbit.
Katy Beale, director of One Star gallery in West Melbourne, is reading Woo Woo by Ella Baxter. Sabine, the main character of Woo Woo, has a performance coming up at a fictional gallery, also in West Melbourne, and she’s in a tizz.
“I feel sorry for her,” says Katy. “She’s a vulnerable person who puts herself out there but she’s probably insufferable.”
Woo Woo is a brave book full of gratuitous language, ghosts, performing puppets and art references that creates a futuristic version of Melbourne where artists are actually feted and shows advertised on posters.
“I found this convincing,” Katy said. “The character is believable. Her art and the way she is about it, is believable.”
Six novels are on the short list, two autofictions, one book of interlocking short stories and a fourth that jumps between London and the country. Three are set in Melbourne.
The Burrow by Melanie Cheng is a family drama seen through the eyes of four characters rather than one and solves the problem of continuity by moving the narrative forward seamlessly through their points-of-view.
It’s a small story set in suburbia against a lockdown background that recreates the zeitgeist, so familiar to those living in Naarm during those years.
A pet rabbit has the biggest personality in the family and is a good foil for their depression after the death of their second child. Author Melanie Cheng is a doctor and so is Amy, the bereaved mother in the story whose grief is the most debilitating.
The novel was closely examined by reviewers when it was released in terms of its emotional content, which could have been quite threatening to the author who seems to care for her characters like a medico, nursing them back to health and the realisation that grief is a placebo for life.
“I don’t mind criticism,” Melanie told AAR. “The treatment you get training to be a doctor is far worse.”
Michelle de Kretser’s theory & practice is a moving autofiction about feeling second best in St Kilda during the ‘80s and is ringing a few bells with readers.
The details are lively. She’s embarrassed by her Sri Lankan mother’s liking for red lipstick, in love with a two-timer and wants to cut up his girlfriend’s clothes, yet she hides her jealousy, unlike present-day Sabine who does a negative TikTok post of her friend’s show from the toilet.
Weaving through de Kretser’s novel is a liking for theory. She’d been told to posit, demystify and interrogate and this is the hard to life’s softer options which might be more entertaining.
Novelists are forced to deal with these negative spaces. Some provide neat labels like racism, others hyperventilate, pushing the boundaries of believability by calling on the artistic greats, while others hide down rabbit holes.
In Woo Woo, Carolee Schneemann, who did a performance piece with animal entrails in the ‘60s, returns as a ghost to help Sabine deal with her doubts.
In the build-up to a performance piece or an art opening, an artist needs plenty of space and encouragement. TikTok and her imagination may be her only friends.
The Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards will be announced on Wednesday 19 March 2025. For more information, visit: www.wheelercentre.com for details.
Image: Katy Beale keeping up with Victoria’s literary awards – photo by Rhonda Dredge
Words: Rhonda Dredge