Alice Pung
Photo by Michelle Tran.

Plight of girls and women explored in Alice Pung’s fractured fairytale

The 25 best Australian books of 2021

By Thuy On
June 11, 2021 — 4.00pm

Alice Pung’s latest book, a novel, is a modern-day fractured fairytale, an update on the medieval princesss imprisoned in a stone tower, with a fire-breathing dragon guarding her honour. Pung’s characters are not languishing atop a misty mountaintop but are on the 14th floor of a housing commisison flat in Melbourne’s western suburbs. There’s also no prince coming to rescue the fair maiden. He’s long since scarpered. And our heroine? She’s a pregnant teen (“and like some mythical monster, I now have two heartbeats”), kept under lock for 100 days and counting by her over-protective mother.

She is Haunted by Paige Clark / Review

 

She is Hauntedby Paige Clark

The 25 best Australian books of 2021

Thuy On

September 16, 2021

The cover art of Paige Clark’s debut book depicts a woman, a pot plant and a chair, positioned at angles to each other. The dark-haired woman does not face the reader but is looking through buttery yellow blinds; you can only see a faint outline of her profile. The image is misaligned and off-kilter, a foreshadowing of the contents of She is Haunted. Comprising eighteen short stories, Clark’s collection of fiction braids the real and the surreal. Perspectives are skewed playfully but an intent to explore serious matters often lies beneath the whimsy.