'From inside her Toorak mansion, Margaret, matriarch, widow of Edmund Rice O’Day of O’Day Funerals, secretly surveys her family in the garden. Everyone, including Margaret herself, is oblivious to the secrets that threaten to be uncovered by a visiting American relative who is determined to excavate the O’Day’s family history. How far will Margaret go in order to bury the truth? Family Skeleton examines the dark heart of a family that has for generations been engaged in dark business. You can’t dig a grave without disturbing the smooth surface of the ground.
'Deftly woven with elegant wit and with compassion, this dark comedy is about what you might unearth if you dig deep enough.' (Publication summary)
'Carmel Bird’s new novel is a fractal satire on the dynastic family novel – replete with the customary tropes of the genre: secrets repressed and confessed in the stratigraphy of a garish baroque of class signifiers. Family Skeleton relates the travails and intrigues of an inbred clan of parvenu undertakers, episodically followed over several generations through a pastiche of anecdote and gossip.' (Introduction)
'Mysterious and intriguing; hidden family secrets are revealed.'
'Mysterious and intriguing; hidden family secrets are revealed.'
'Carmel Bird’s new novel is a fractal satire on the dynastic family novel – replete with the customary tropes of the genre: secrets repressed and confessed in the stratigraphy of a garish baroque of class signifiers. Family Skeleton relates the travails and intrigues of an inbred clan of parvenu undertakers, episodically followed over several generations through a pastiche of anecdote and gossip.' (Introduction)
