MKretser’s deviously clever sixth novel by Ichelle combines two first-person narratives. One is set in the dystopian near future of Melbourne, where Lyle, an immigrant father of two, is employed by the state to write grim “assessments” appointing other migrants for arrest and repatriation; the other half of the book is set in 1981 and follows Lili, a 22-year-old Australian working as a teaching assistant in France, before postgraduate literary studies at Oxford. It is typical of De Kretser’s sophistication that she leaves the connection between these narratives entirely to you – the order in which they are to be read is left to the individual reader, given the book’s reversible two-way design, defying the Kindle.

I plunged directly into the intimately conversational evocation of Lili to run with a circle of young Europeans attached to her high school in Montpellier, in particular Minna, who is leaving a year of fine arts school in London to accompany her grandchild. friend Nick. Lili fights for money, has problems with her landlord and neighbor, and faces racism on a daily basis (her family immigrated from Asia to Australia, like De Kretser, who was born in Sri Lanka). She can’t help but fall in love with Minna and Nick’s aura of glamor, especially when she learns that Nick is working on a novel, which never occurred to her. could do, even as an aspiring university student under the spell of Simone de Beauvoir.

As the three meet, Lili’s story unfolds like a coming-of-age vignette depicting the lonely restlessness of fuzzy sexual desire and formless creative ambition. Regular moments of comedy erupt, especially when Lili joins Minna on her way to Italy to visit John Berger’s mistress (apparently an acquaintance of Minna’s mother), where various mid-trip lunch options are dismissed. as bourgeois until Minna arrives in a suitably authentic workers’ restaurant. , only to balk at what’s on the menu. Yet there is also steel in De Kretser’s portrayal of the icy reception Lili receives upon entering the Western culture that has defined her intellectual interests.

When Lili’s section ends in a moment of collective ecstasy in Francois Mitterrand’s Socialist Party election, there is an immediate change of tone for the reader, who then turns the book 180 degrees to start the thread. more and more urgent conspiracy that takes place in Lyle’s Australia. There are hoverboards here, yes, but triple-digit sunscreen is the norm, much of Sydney is underwater, and Islamic worship is banned as terrorist activity under a series of laws targeting minorities.

As a civil servant who is also a migrant, Lyle admits he is a hair’s breadth away from the authoritarian powers he helps enforce. When he talks about a wind that “cuts like it’s coming from a Gillette factory” it’s a mark of De Kretser’s intelligence how psychologically sharp the line is, almost as if Lyle is trying too hard. to report his membership in order to pass without attracting suspicion.

The plot revolves around heightened domestic strife, as Lyle’s enterprising wife sets out to exploit recent euthanasia legislation to kill her mother and liquidate her assets to move to a new area better suited to the circles they aspire to. There is an affinity here with the type of story found in George Saunders’ novel. December ten, whose speakers unwittingly reveal the disturbing norms they have assimilated without asking any questions. Much of the energy comes from how De Kretser allows us to piece together the precise nature of his weather-ravaged hellish landscape, such as when Lyle casually talks about getting his cattle sting ready before heading to his car. night.

De Kretser’s previous novel, 2018’s Life to come, also included discrete segments, and like in this book, there is a certain guesswork quality here. While Lyle’s segment’s doom trend almost stifles the heady sense of possibility captured in Lili’s thread, the book’s overwhelming sense of anger and alarm is mingled with satirical glee as well. Even if she has visibly in view the apocalyptic drift of the present, De Kretser transmits to the reader the inescapable feeling that she is having fun too, in this engaging amalgam of lamentation and warning shot.