I reviewed Charlotte Wood’s new novel Animal People for the Age and it looks like it has already found its way online, on the SMH website (not sure if it was in their print version as well). It is definitely one of the best Australian books I’ve read this year, and I do encourage you to check it out. I sought it out as I loved Wood’s previous novel The Children.

Animal People is an engaging read. I say in the review that moments in the novel ‘are compelling because they are recognisable. But the novel’s observations also compel because of a subtle tragicomedy. There are so many moments that feel simultaneously familiar and strange, humorous and sad: a security guard on a Segway, old people seeking seats on the bus, a paramedic dressed as a fairy. There’s even a Kafkaesque sense of persecution: Stephen as one against the world.’

Read the rest, if you like, here.