The shortlist for this year's $60,000 Miles Franklin Literary Award spans from an experimental novel by a two-time winner to one that was self-published; it contains more women than men, and three of the five novels are first- or second-generation migrant stories.
For her sixth novel, titled Scary Monsters, Michelle de Kretser (who won the Miles Franklin in 2013 for Questions of Travel, and in 2018 for The Life to Come) experiments with form, presenting two stories, each told by an Asian migrant to Australia, as separate 'halves' of the one book — each with its own cover.
"Migration turns lives upside down. So I wanted the format of the book to embody that, really; that kind of disorientation, that feeling of 'Who changed the story?' that comes over you when you move to a new country," de Kretser told ABC RN's The Book Show.
Michael Mohammed Ahmad, meanwhile, closes his trilogy of "autobiographical fiction" about Bani Adam, an Arab Australian Muslim young man growing up in Western Sydney, with his novel The Other Half of You.
It's the second time Ahmad has been shortlisted for the Miles Franklin, following his 2019 novel The Lebs (the second novel in the Bani Adam trilogy).
The Other Half of You takes the form of a letter from Bani to his son Kahlil, telling his story. Ahmad has described Bani as his alter ego — and he was inspired to write his new novel after the birth of his son, also named Kahlil.
"If there's one thing I wanted to highlight and celebrate [in this book] it's the strength of Arab fatherhood," Ahmad told The Book Show.
One Hundred Days, by acclaimed novelist and memoirist Alice Pung (Unpolished Gem; Laurinda), also takes the form of a parent narrating their story to their child: in this case, it's 16-year-old Karuna, speaking to her unborn child — as she swelters in the Melbourne apartment where her Chinese-Filipino mother has confined her for the duration of her pregnancy.
Rounding out the list is Jennifer Down's much-praised third novel, Bodies of Light (shortlisted for both the Stella Prize and the Victorian Premier's Literary Awards in 2022); and Michael Winkler's experimental, self-published novel Grimmish, inspired by a real life boxer with a talent for pain.
Winkler's novel is an outlier of sorts: the first self-published novel to be longlisted for the Miles Franklin (it was picked up by indie publisher Puncher & Wattmann after being submitted).
He told ABC South West Victoria: "I sent it [the unpublished manuscript] to an agent who was quite excited by it, and then he took it to every publishing house in Australia — and no one wanted it … I was pretty despondent. And then I thought … I've ploughed years of work into this book, I may as well self-publish — even though it's a hard route to go."
Below, the presenters of ABC RN's book shows take us through the shortlisted novels.
The winner of the Miles Franklin Literary Award will be announced on July 20.
The Other Half of You by Michael Mohammed Ahmad
Hachette Australia
"Rust is my blood. Stardust is my soul. And you are the blood of my soul."
So begins the rapturous narration of The Other Half of You, as Bani Adam tells his newborn son the story of how he and the baby's mother fell in love. Hint: it wasn't easy.
As the first university graduate from his conservative Lebanese Muslim family, Bani has big ideas and a bigger heart. He's looking for love. But his options are limited, as his parents insist that he marries within their 'tribe' of Alawite Muslims in Western Sydney.
Bani feels things on an epic scale. And when love goes wrong, he'll quote Shakespeare, scream, cry, even vomit with pain. He's a brilliant, flawed, unforgettable character – and you'll be forgiven for imagining him with Michael Mohammed Ahmad's face, as the author has been upfront about his character's autobiographical origins.
The Other Half of You completes a trilogy of books about Bani Adam: we met him as a child in The Tribe, followed him through adolescence in The Lebs, and now we see his journey into adulthood in this final instalment in the series. This last book is the most emotional and sentimental of the three, overflowing with love for Ahmad's real-life wife and son. It's a glorious read. CN
Bodies of Light by Jennifer Down
Text
Meet Maggie. Her mother is dead, her father is in jail, and at the age of five she is put into the Victorian residential care system. It's as horrific as you might imagine: Maggie is abused, neglected and uncertain, never sure of where she'll be sent next, and what horrors might await her there. But with each new start, Maggie learns to reinvent herself – a skill that will guide her through her adult life.
This epic, exquisite novel follows one Australian woman through a life shaped by trauma. We're with Maggie from her childhood right into her 40s, and her adult life is as tumultuous as her childhood, with love, marriage and motherhood all proving to be disastrous. Again and again, Maggie starts over – trying new partners, new jobs, even new countries — in her quest to find some sort of peace.
It's a heavy read, for sure. But the marvel of this novel is that none of Maggie's hardships feel gratuitous or unbelievable. Jennifer Down writes her heroine's story with great empathy and love; Maggie is vulnerable, honest and quietly clever.
The darkness of the narrative is also balanced with some breathtaking moments of transcendence – the magic of a night at the ballet, the glow of phosphorescent algae in a lake. These moments lift Maggie (and the reader) out of her pain and into the stratosphere. CN
Grimmish by Michael Winkler
Puncher & Wattmann
Joe Grim was a boxer who didn't feel pain. His reeling body became a spectacle, hit again and again, absorbing everything jabbed, pummelled and thrown his way. He was a real person: born in Italy and migrated to the USA, before travelling to Australia in 1908.
Grim's story became entwined with the racialised performance of the famous Burns-Johnson fight, held in Sydney in 1908, where a Black American fighter (Jack Johnson) defeated a white fighter (Tommy Burns), a result so incendiary it was written about in ways that would make your hair stand on end.
But Michael Winkler is most interested in Joe Grim as a man who absorbs and deflects pain. He's also interested in myriad forms of storytelling, and the narrator is in conversation with his impossibly ancient 'Uncle Michael', who was there, who saw it all; who agrees – after a bottle of port or two – to pour out his memories, along with blood and broken teeth and cow's piss.
All of this makes this novel sound too obvious and conventional. It's not, and hallelujah for that. Instead, it sets up a delicious conversation between stories and histories and research and footnotes. These mini essays at the bottom of the page are asides and reflections and tall tales, as well as references and quotes and intertextual play, with sources and other writers all carefully cited.
Much has been made of the weirdness of this book, but it struck me that this is the way I think and imagine: with a welter of speculation and references and obsessions all tumbled together. So it made sense to me. And then I remembered there was also a talking goat, and a naked "Pig Thug" riding a horse into battle. Reader: you be the judge. KE
One Hundred Days by Alice Pung
Black Inc
It's hot in the apartment, up on the 14th floor; stifling, both from a Melbourne summer and a mother's fury. Every breath is too close, oppressive, controlling, with the door locked. Because 16-year-old Karuna is pregnant – not on purpose, but not exactly accidentally either – and as far as her mother is concerned, Karuna isn't going anywhere.
It's 1987, and Karuna is telling this story to her unborn baby, not to us. In her telling, Grand Mar is the unstoppable force against which everything else beats. She, Karuna's mother, is from the Philippines, with Chinese heritage and a strong sense of hierarchy, shame, and worth. Karuna's beloved dad is white Australian, but no longer on the scene, and Karuna thinks of herself as "like a dusty, back-of-the-shelf version of a white girl, one of those dusky Barbies that gets shoved in the discount pile".
Of course, there's nothing two-dollar-shop about this girl: she's smart and funny and tough. But her mother's will might just break her. Her mother, who works to contour make-up lines and new angles onto the faces of brides, is determined to lock her in, keep her home, confine her to the apartment for the remainder of her pregnancy (and for months afterwards, too, if she gets her way). One hundred days is a long time to have your mother watch you, up close, even sharing a bed now you can't be trusted.
Pung takes us into the claustrophobic lives of her characters with compassion but without sentimentality. You want to scream out through the tiny crack at the side of the window, as Karuna does; but you also share the widening crack of her understanding, as she grapples with her mother's "finite, roaring, ferocious self", whose problem is not that she doesn't care but that she cares too much. KE
Scary Monsters by Michelle de Kretser
Allen & Unwin
How do you choose where to start when there are two front covers of a book? Michelle de Kretser, twice winner of the Miles Franklin Literary Award, presents this problem to readers in her sixth novel. One cover features a single red cherry, the other is decorated in a sea of white cherry blossoms. You could be forgiven for thinking it's a literary gimmick, but there's something deeper at play here.
The book is split in two: read Lyle's story first and you enter a dystopian future Australia where children are called Nike, Porsche and Ikea, and the protagonist works for the ominous-sounding "Department". Then at the end of the Lyle section, you flip the book and are transported to 1981 France and the story of Lili, who is teaching English in Montpellier and exploring her identity as a 22-year-old woman. (Or you could start with Lili and flip to Lyle — which is how I read it).
The styles in both sections are vastly different and there is only one obvious connection between the narratives, but de Kretser is asking her readers to draw parallels. Both narrators are Asian migrants to Australia, and we're told in the introductory blurb that migration turns your world upside down. De Kretser's ability is on full display in both narratives, as she demonstrates the dexterity and vision that have made her one of our brightest literary stars. SL
Tune in to ABC RN at 10am Mondays for The Book Show and 10am Saturdays for The Bookshelf.
