Cirrus@Austlit

Return to Earth is an imaginative, bittersweet comedy about a young woman who returns home only to find that everything is strange and unfamiliar. She doesn't seem to know if she wants to stay or not. But the pull on her is strong. They want her here. They need her. A best friend, a man who could be a lover, her Mum and Dad. And her brother whose little girl is dying of kidney disease. When Alice is called on to help them, real life starts to tug her down to earth.

Set in 1914 as Melbourne's Swanston River threatens to consume all in its wake, Goodbye Vaudeville Charlie Mudd unearths a half-remembered world of highly questionable character, in which a ghostly, clamorous chorus rails against the din of the modern world. [From the book's back cover]