Tag / Novels

by Melissa Watts

Kristel Thornell – Night Street

Kristel Thornell's Night Street Kristel Thornell’s Night Street is a fictitious imagining of the life of tonalist painter Clarice Beckett. Released this year after winning the 2009 Australian/Vogel award the novel is commonly viewed as being more biographical than fictional. Clarice Beckett was a young tonalist artist who studied under Frederick McCubbin then under Max Meldrum. Beckett’s works are now widely lauded and can be seen in collections in the National Gallery, various state galleries, and regional galleries such as Castlemaine and Ballarat. However Thornell is clear to point out in the Author’s note in the conclusion of the novel, “The Clarice who appears in this work is not Clarice Beckett (1887-1935) but my imagining of her. While the historical figure’s art and life inspired me, I took many creative liberties with these.”

I was eager to read this novel for a few reasons. I am a fan of Beckett’s work, after learning about the tonalist movement via the family history of my partner, who is related to Percy Leason, tonalist and political satirist. Another reason I was interested in reading this novel was because I am working on a novel where the protagonist is a female artist, albeit 70 years earlier, based in Melbourne. Continue reading →

by Melissa Watts

More than football – Melbourne’s History

This week I went to the book launch of Lisa Lang’s Utopian Man. It is a fictional re-imagining of the life of E.W. Cole, the creator of the wonderful Cole’s Book Arcade. The arcade began as a small second-hand book stall in the Eastern Market in 1865 and eventually became an Arcade from Bourke Street through to Collins Street, closing in 1931. Within that time the arcade included its own press, which produced the famous Cole’s Funny Picture Books, its own set of coins, a cage of monkeys and a Chinese tea salon to name just a few of wild and wonderful things. Continue reading →

by Melissa Watts

M.J. Hyland – This is How

Patrick Oxtoby won’t leave my mind. Since reading MJ Hyland’s This is How I can’t stop thinking about him.

Without wanting to ruin the plot the general premise of the novel is this – Patrick Oxtoby moves into a seaside boarding house after his fiancé ends their engagement. With a new job at the local mechanic, and some distance from his mother, he is ready for change. The relationships he forms in the new town will dictate the rest of his life.

 From the first paragraph I knew I was in for a character like no other:

 I put my bags down on the doorstep and knock three times. I don’t bang hard like a copper, but it’s not as though I’m ashamed to be knocking either.

 This is a man who analyses door knocks. Continue reading →