Cirrus@Austlit

'Lily works as a cleaner. She moves through houses in inner-city Melbourne, unseen, scrubbing away the daily residue of other people s privilege. Her partner Janks works the line in a local food factory. With every pay check they inch further away from their former world of poverty and addiction.

'Lily and Janks are determined that their daughter Jewelee will have a different life. She ll have a career, not a dead-end job. She ll have savings, not debt. But precarious lives are easily upended. One wrong move throws the family into a situation in which the lines between right and wrong, hope and disappointment, are blurred.

'Other Houses is a masterful and tender story about people who live from payday to payday. Acutely observed and lyrical, Paddy O Reilly's novel paints a haunting picture of class, aspiration and the boundaries we will cross for love.' (Publication summary)

'What sets them apart is the radical, experimental and sometimes faulty medical treatments they've all undergone. Leon has a hole punched through his chest and a small mechanical heart visible to all; Kathryn has been cured of a rare genetic disorder but the treatment left her covered in curly black wool; and performance artist Christos has metal wings implanted into his back.

'When 'The Wonders' are brought together by a canny entrepreneur, their glamorous, genre-defying, twenty first-century freak show becomes a global sensation. But what makes them objects of fascination also places them in danger. A wonderfully inventive novel that challenges our ideas about celebrity, disability and the value of life from one of Australia's finest authors at the peak of her powers.' (Publication summary)