I give this novel 3 stars out of 5. I italicized novel because it's really two novellas in one. Cool gimmick how de Kretser and her publisher don't tell you which story comes first — you need to flip the book over to read the other novella.
I started with Lili in 1980s France. In hindsight, I should've written characters' names down and the page number they first appear (something I do especially with 300-page-plus mysteries where there are more names than at a teachers' workshop). I kinda lost the plot halfway through that story. Maybe it's because de Kretser is Australian, but her writing reminded me of Patrick White, who is the author of The Cockatoos, which The Cure did a song about. Part of the reason I make that connection is because one of Lili's neighbors, Rinaldi, and his girlfriend(?), Candlewoman. Was she a hallucination that Lili saw in window? I'm assuming Candlewoman was a metaphor, but of what?
Lyle's story was much more engaging. I liked how de Kretser satirized those that insist on going by the they pronoun with the character from the IT department. The whole story was really good of how Australia might be in 2040, up until about the last 7 pages. de Kretser totally lost me. Didn't know what was going on. Still, glad I read it . . . not as good as Emily Bitto's The Strays, but nice to read something from Down Under that leans on the literature side.
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