Born: Established: 1950 Melbourne, Victoria, ;
Gender:
Female
Heritage:
Jewish
Invented Lives
Carlton North
:
Scribe
,
2019
14975954
2019
single work
novel
'It is the mid-1980s. In Australia, stay-at-home wives jostle with want-it-all feminists, while AIDS threatens the sexual freedom of everyone. On the other side of the world, the Soviet bloc is in turmoil.
'Mikhail Gorbachev has been in power for a year when twenty-four-year-old book illustrator Galina Kogan leaves Leningrad - forbidden ever to return. As a Jew, she's inherited several generations worth of Russia's chronic anti-Semitism. As a Soviet citizen, she is unprepared for Australia and its easy-going ways.
'Once settled in Melbourne, Galina is befriended by Sylvie and Leonard Morrow, and their adult son, Andrew. The Morrow marriage of thirty years balances on secrets. Leonard is a man with conflicted desires and passions, while Sylvie chafes against the confines of domestic life. Their son, Andrew, a successful mosaicist, is a deeply shy man. He is content with his life and work - until he finds himself increasingly drawn to Galina.
'While Galina grapples with the tumultuous demands that come with being an immigrant in Australia, her presence disrupts the lives of each of the Morrows. No one is left unchanged. Invented Lives tells a story of exile - exile from country, exile at home, and exile from one's true self. It is also a story about love.'
(Publication summary)
The Memory Trap
Sydney South
:
HarperCollins Australia
,
2013
Z1908497
2013
single work
novel
'The past feeds into the present and often undermines it in this story about marriage, memory and mistakes that can never be forgiven. It features Nina, a memorial consultant and her futurologist husband Daniel: her sister Zoe, a music teacher and Zoe's biographer husband, American ex-alcoholic Elliot. And lastly, there is Ramsay Blake, a genius at the piano but a half-baked human being in every other respect.
All the relationships are on shaky ground. As for memory and forgiveness are less reliable than what we would like to think.' (Source: Author's website: http://andreagoldsmith.com.au/the-memory-trap/ )
The Prosperous Thief
Crows Nest
:
Allen and Unwin
,
2002
Z987782
2002
single work
novel
'There are thieves who prosper. But are there thefts which can never be forgiven?
'The Prosperous Thief covers the turbulent sweep of the twentieth century. Rich in ideas and emotions, it is an epic story of the entwined lives of two vastly different families spanning three continents.
'Alice Lewin survived the war as a young child. After decades of burying her past she decides to visit the Kindertransport archive, where she learns of the existence of a possible relative, Henry Lewin. She travels to Australia to hear his story, but it's a story that she's in no way prepared to hear.
'The truth has profound ramifications and both Alice's son, Raphe, and Henry's daughter, Laura, struggle to deal with their connected lives. But just as the thefts of the Second World War define their past, so deception threatens their future.
'From the horrors of war to the fiery landscape of one of the world's most active volcanoes, this compelling novel generates its own unsettling shadows.'
Source: Publisher's blurb.
