'Erica Marsden’s son, an artist, has been imprisoned for homicidal negligence. In a state of grief, Erica cuts off all ties to family and friends, and retreats to a quiet hamlet on the south-east coast near the prison where he is serving his sentence.
'There, in a rundown shack, she obsesses over creating a labyrinth by the ocean. To build it—to find a way out of her quandary—Erica will need the help of strangers. And that will require her to trust, and to reckon with her past.
'The Labyrinth is a hypnotic story of guilt and denial, of the fraught relationship between parents and children, that is also a meditation on how art can both be ruthlessly destructive and restore sanity. It shows Amanda Lohrey to be at the peak of her powers.' (Publication summary)
'Every so often, and usually when the novice writer needs them most, a writer of immense stature, a writer who has written and published and continued to write and publish, impressively, joyfully, doggedly, over the course of forty years and seven books, a writer whose work has been long listed for the Miles Franklin three times and shortlisted twice before finally and deservedly winning the 2021 award for The Labyrinth, very occasionally, a writer like this, a writer named Amanda Lohrey will reach out to the inexperienced writer at the beginning of their career and say something kind. They will say that they like the work or they will recommend places to submit writing or books to read. More than anything, however, they will tell a writer to hold their nerve. They will tell them that writing is hard, that it takes discipline, that writing, true writing, is a practice. And though, I suspect, Amanda will frown, or perhaps laugh, at this backstory – for I know, at least in the literature she writes and reads, Amanda frowns, and sometimes laughs, at backstories – it cannot be underestimated how important these words have been.' (Introduction)
'Amanda Lohrey’s Miles Franklin-winnning novel explores notions of impermanence and healing in a small coastal town.'
'The Patrick White literary award-winner’s latest book is poetic, sharply tuned and compelling – and ideal for the meandering uncertainties of 2020'
'Amanda Lohrey might be described as a writer’s writer: proficient in short and long form fiction and a veteran of the essay. Her writing is the literature of ideas.' (Introduction)
'Across her seven novels, Amanda Lohrey has been interested in the role that reading plays in our lives. In her work, reading is always situated: we know where her characters read, how it shapes and is shaped by their circumstances. We follow 1950s Hobart communists from their reading groups to the docks to the courtroom. In a near-future Australia, characters read to find some guidance about how to act meaningfully in the face of political crisis. A woman’s reading of Jane Eyre in a dark Leichhardt terrace scaffolds her life and decisions. Another character reads Madame Bovary on a canal boat, freezing, miserable and surrounded by rowdy teenagers, and finds herself oddly reflected. A city man moves to the bush and reads travel writing about another land stolen, fought over and decimated.' (Introduction)
'Amanda Lohrey’s Miles Franklin-winnning novel explores notions of impermanence and healing in a small coastal town.'
