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This debut is billed as a queer When Harry Met Sally for the Sally Rooney set, but it lacks the nuance or insight of that film or author. From the outset, 28 Questions lets readers know it’s a story of heartbreak, inviting a look back to how things arrived at that point. The novel follows music student Amalia, a young Australian woman studying in Britain. She develops a fast friendship with fellow expat Alex, and across four years their relationship evolves, often in toxic ways. There are moments of creative flair – the use of sheet music and chords denoting different kinds of love is a nice allusion to Amalia’s (and Indyana Schneider’s) musical studies – but overall, the novel is overdone: stuffed full of clunky literary references, unrealistic dialogue bizarrely formatted in script, and the pseudo-intellectual philosophical conversations typical of first-year university students.
NON-FICTION PICK OF THE WEEK
Chasing Shadows
Kristy Campion, Allen & Unwin, $32.99
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Many Australians still think that terrorism comes from out there, beyond our sovereign borders, but Kristy Campion, an expert on right-wing extremism, explodes that myth in this embracing history of extremism in Australia. She begins with the home-grown Australian terrorist who perpetrated the Christchurch massacre in 2019 then goes back to the Irish Fenian who shot the touring Duke of Edinburgh in 1868, through to the fascist organisations of the 1930s, the extremes of the 1960s student movement and on to contemporary groups. She not only shines a light on the shadowy world of terrorism but also analyses their unifying motives, the religious and ideological factors and the misguided utopian visions that sanction violence and mass murder. This is a lucid, crisply argued examination of dramatic material.
Leo and Mina Fink
Margaret Taft, Monash University Publishing, $34.95
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It’s sobering indeed to learn that in 1947, after the Holocaust, 58 per cent of Australians were against the resettlement of Jewish refugees in Australia and papers warned of an “Influx of Jews”. So, when a Dutch ship with more than 700 Jewish refugees docked in Sydney, exceeding immigration guidelines, it was deeply controversial. The organising force behind the refugees were Leo and Mina Fink, a Polish-born Melbourne couple who emigrated to Australia in 1932, remained committed to their Jewish origins, to resettling Jewish survivors and community work in general. Margaret Taft’s engaging biography of the couple also creates a clear, synoptic picture of the times (especially pre-war Poland) that made them, as well as the places such as their home town Bialystok and the early Melbourne Jewish community.
For the Good of the World
A.C. Grayling, Oneworld, $34.99
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Some may find A.C. Grayling’s argument that we need to find some form of global, ethical agreement to confront the urgent issues now facing humanity quixotic – but, as he says in this calm, demanding but accessible assessment of how things stand, “it is appropriate to contemplate the ideal, because it sets a horizon to strive towards”. There are three major problems: climate change; runaway technology (especially potential uses of AI), and social justice (embracing contemporary feminism and gender politics). In a globalised world, a global solution is required, but can humans agree on a broad set of values to confront these problems? Incorporating such concepts as cultural relativism, among others, Grayling explores ways of achieving this. And, as he emphasises, if we don’t work together, reality will impose its own solutions.
Class in Australia
Eds., Steven Threadgold & Jessica Gerrard, Monash University Publishing, $39.95
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For decades, the neo-conservative line has been that “class” is dead – especially, in an aspirational age, the idea of a working class. This collection of essays demonstrates that class in all its complexity is very much alive and has been crucial in the framing of Australian history. As much as the Right might try to appropriate the “battlers” and “quiet Australians”, inequality, as the editors state, has rarely been so stark. In contrast to those simplistic labels, this is a nuanced examination that goes back to the colonial era and the rise of class, through to the increase of populism and the problematic “bogan”. The language can be jargonised – although the game opens out when Larissa Behrendt discusses, among other things, the rise of the Indigenous middle class – but this is an important, timely study.
A novel of the moment, and terrorism in Australia: What to read next
Source: Philippines Alive
