Is this book the new Slap? Our review of The Pool and other fresh releases

From local domestic noir, Australian politics and nature writing to mum jokes and personal reflections from a renowned psychotherapist, this week’s new releases cover almost all genre bases.

FICTION PICK OF THE WEEK
Tomorrow There Will Be Sun – A Hope Prize Anthology
Simon & Schuster, $24.99

The Hope Prize is an international short fiction competition – judged in 2024 by Dame Quentin Bryce, Julia Gillard and Tony Birch, among others – and all proceeds from the sale of its anthology are donated to a worthy organisation, this time Beyond Blue. Hope and resilience and bravery are themes, and the collection offers an eclectic range of stories, showcasing Australian authors amid their international counterparts. The standard is very high, with the bar set by the opening story, from Nigerian writer and queer liberation activist Ani Kayode Somtochukwu. The Sorrow and the Pity speculates on two teenage Igbo boys, survivors of the Biafran War, who face separation just as they discover their love for one another. It’s beautiful, cadenced, not a word out of place, and the hope is tenuous, suspended ethereally above darkness and violence. Mercifully, you won’t find a shred of unearned uplift or “toxic positivity” in this volume, and lovers or writers of short fiction should snap up a copy.

The Inheritance
Kate Horan
HQ, $34.99

If high emotional stakes are a hallmark of novels featuring family intrigue, rich and powerful dynasties bring finance and politics into play. Isabel Ashworth has been sent by her tycoon father to manage a controversial property development in an ultra-posh township, to prove herself fit for a leading role in her family’s business empire. She soon rankles the inhabitants and finds she cannot trust those closest to her. Meanwhile, freelance journalist Meg Hunter gets a whiff of corruption from the Ashworth’s latest project, and some odd clues to a family secret as her mother succumbs to dementia. When the Ashworth scions each receive a DNA testing kit for Christmas, Isabel seeks out Meg to assist in uncovering a web of deceit. Someone is determined to stop the truth coming out. Kate Horan’s debut is acute on the psychology of power and wealth, and the novel is intricate plotting with memorable characters. If you’re into Succession or the real-life tussle over the Murdoch family trust, The Inheritance will appeal.

The Pool
Hannah Tunnicliffe
Ultimo, $34.99

Hannah Tunnicliffe’s new novel will please fans of psychological suspense.Credit: Jody Lidst

Domestic noir with a whodunit hook, Hannah Tunnicliffe’s The Pool reunites a friendship circle 10 years after a tragedy at a suburban barbecue. One of them has gone missing – Baz King, a raffish “prince of spin” whose lobbying career is full of dodgy dealings and contacts – and there’s no shortage of suspects with motives for wanting the charismatic chap out of the way. His embittered ex-wife, Bridie, his lover, Jess, and her partner, Richard, a co-worker, a friend who fell in love with the nanny, the list goes on, and now the parents among this group of Melburnian families are in their 40s, they’ve accumulated more dysfunction and resentment. Tunnicliffe does unleash a bamboozling number of characters on the reader at the outset, but once you’ve settled into this suburban mystery, told from various perspectives, the author delivers twists you won’t see coming. Although comparisons to Christos Tsiolkas’ The Slap aren’t warranted, this will satisfy fans of the domestic subgenre of psychological suspense.

The Artist
Lucy Steeds
John Murray, $32.99

Set in 1920 in Provence, Lucy Steeds’ The Artist examines the lot of a young woman living in the shadow of a famous and reclusive male painter, Edouard Tartuffe. His niece, Ettie, was orphaned as a child. She doesn’t remember her mother who had an affair, became pregnant and died in tragic circumstances, leaving her in the care of her uncle. Yet, it is Ettie who provides most of the care. She cooks, cleans, does all the housework and runs professional errands for the eccentric painter to procure what he needs to work. When journalist Joseph arrives to write a feature story, his curiosity is piqued. He is determined to be ambitious, tormented by (among other things) his refusal to fight in World War I, but it is the sharp-eyed and intelligent Ettie who intrigues him most. Under her subservient exterior, Ettie longs to escape a life of domestic bondage and realise creative ambitions of her own. It’s a vivid and atmospheric literary novel, rich in observational detail, that explores and transcends the oppressive power dynamics of artistic creation.

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NON-FICTION PICK OF THE WEEK
On This Ground. Best Australian Nature Writing
Edited by Dave Witty
Monash University Publishing, $34.99

Author Kim Mahood’s work features in this collection of Australian nature writing.Credit: Martin Ollman

A mood of deep disquiet haunts this collection. Editor Dave Witty calls it “unsettler anxiety”: “the realisation we have altered the natural world to such a degree that the future is a dark and frightening place”. What saves these essays from bleakness is the way they fine-tune our ears to nature’s broadband, bringing about a shift in attention that can make all the difference. After reading Connor Tomas O’Brien’s beautifully understated piece on the plains-wanderer, a nearly flightless bird that is a master of disguise, you can’t look at “empty” grasslands in the same way again. Gregory Day’s expansive musings on the “inscape” of a waterbird, Emily Mowat’s meditation on a year spent in extremis on Macquarie Island, Kim Mahood’s lifelong wanderings in the footsteps of central Australia’s ancestors: each essay is as potent a catalyst for transformation as Tim Winton’s call to arms, his trenchant polemic on how writers of the past have failed at this job.

Hour of the Heart
Irvin D. Yalom & Benjamin Yalom
Scribe, $29.99

For renowned psychotherapist Irvin Yalom, “it’s the relationship that heals”. This philosophy is poignantly enacted in his account of how he adapted a career of therapeutic practice to the reality of his failing memory. In his early 1990s, he realised he could no longer retain the case history details of long-term patients. This inspired the novel approach of one-off, hour-long sessions that resulted in concentrated encounters fuelled by a sense of urgency. It was perfectly suited to his lifetime’s “here and now” method where the interactions between patient and therapist become the tools for change. Yalom’s undiminished curiosity, his skilful and candid deployment of his own flaws and his ability to meet the demands of the moment make for richly rewarding case histories informed by personal reflections on identity, ageing, loss and death.

Minority Report. Quarterly Essay
George Megalogenis
Black Inc, $29.99

George Megalogenis describes Australia as being in a global category of its own in the latest Quarterly Essay.

With the prospect of a hung parliament looming after the next election, George Megalogenis asks whether voters got what they wanted from the 2022 election and whether a growing crossbench will continue to shake up the two-party system. What will the deepening electoral fault lines between city and country, women and men, the young and the old deliver? He speculates that the No vote for the Voice will not necessarily translate into a vote for Peter Dutton if slashing migration is the centrepiece of his campaign. Anthony Albanese, he says, should learn from John Howard’s GST backflip and his own on stage 3 tax cuts and take a bold housing reform package to the next election. Hearteningly, Megalogenis sees Australia as being “in a global category of its own because it aims to force change on the system, not disrupt it”. A minority government is “our last best chance” to make this happen.

Funny Stuff No One Asked For
Jimmy Smith and Nath Roye
Allen & Unwin, $24.99

Radio presenters Jimmy Smith and Nath Roye have collected these jokes but the authors are their listeners, people such as the prolific Anthony from Kilmore whose contributions range from off-colour gags to smart wordplay like this: “A man goes to a funeral and asks the widow: mind if I say a word? She says: please do. The man clears his throat and says plethora. The widow replies: Thanks, that means a lot.” While Henry from Brisbane’s joke might be called topical – “What do you get when you cross a dick with a potato? A dictator” – current politics isn’t a preoccupation. This is a book with sex on its mind. At the fun end, there’s Mia from Hume’s: “What did the penis say to the condom? Cover me, I’m going in.” At the deep blue end, there are some mum jokes that confuse shock value with humour. Overall, it’s a mixed bag.

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