Praise for Michelle de Krester’s The Life to Come
Winner of the 2018 Miles Franklin Literary Award Short-listed for the 2018 Stella Prize
“De Kretser’s writing captures, with unflagging wit, grace and subtlety, the spiritual as well as physical journeys of people on the move—between cultures, mindsets and stages of growth . . . She writes about the aura and texture of places with breath-stopping virtuosity.”
—BOYD TONKIN, Financial Times
“Michelle de Kretser’s The Life to Come won her a second Miles Franklin Award. Very few novels see through our times with such vision and perspicacity, such wit and compassion, and yet this profound book is the farthest thing imaginable from that journalistic demand made of literature, that it should ‘make sense of our times.’ It does, but not in any ways that you’d imagine.”
—NEEL MUKHERJEE, New Statesman, One of the Best Books of the Year
“For a novel concerned with dislocation, there’s a lot of grounding humor in The Life to Come. Most of it comes at the expense of Pippa and her ilk, but de Kretser’s observations are so spot on, you’ll forgive her even as you cringe.”
—AMELIA LESTER, The New York Times Book Review
“The novel is filled with brilliant, quick-fire characterizations. The Life to Come is a scalpel-sharp work of Flaubertian social realism—but now the provincial setting whose customs it mercilessly dissects encompasses all Australia, if not all the world.”
—SAM SACKS, The Wall Street Journal
“The two best novels of the year are both Australian . . . Michelle de Kretser’s surprising and profound The Life to Come has an unfashionable aspect: it is richly funny, and excoriating about current pieties. The lucidity and joy of de Kretser’s prose, too, is a wonder to behold.”
—PHILIP HENSHER, The Spectator
“There is an enjoyably acute observation on almost every page of Michelle de Kretser’s new novel . . . As always, de Kretser offers a wide compassionate view to contain the cruel specific thoughts and accounts of past wrongs.”
—LINDSAY DUGUID, The Times Literary Supplement
“This marvelous stylistic work, dense with lush descriptions of scents, Asian food, Australian trees and flowers, weather, and Sydney neighborhoods, reflects on issues of race, immigration, and what it means to be an Australian: so different from America—or is it? Highly recommended.”
—REBA LEIDING, Library Journal (starred review)
“The characters give de Kretser . . . a chance to explore the complexity of societies in the long throes of mistreatment of their ethnic minorities, whether those are Aboriginal people, Indians, Sri Lankans in Australia, or Algerians in Paris . . . There is also much pleasure to be found in de Kretser’s lovely prose, whose every sentence fiercely shines. A thought-provoking novel of both beauty and brains.”
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“The acclaimed Australian writer’s fifth novel spans continents—set in Australia, France and her native Sri Lanka—and weaves together disparate narratives that raise uncomfortable questions about Australian society, self-satisfied liberalism and modern life.”
—CLAIRE FALLON, HuffPost
“De Kretser’s satirical observations—on the literati, self-congratulation, suburban pretension—are so subtly deboning they remind me of Jane Austen’s. These flash from prose that is taut, lyrical, and intelligent, with an oblique gaze that—like Hilary Mantel’s—reveals a character or place with fresh and startling clarity . . . I don’t often tumble out literary comparisons, but for de Kretser they seem justified to chart her standing as a world-class novelist. The Life to Come deserves all the gongs we can bang for it.”
—JAMES MCNAMARA, The Spectator
“Five days into 2018, is it possible we already have the year’s best novel? I’ll be amazed if anything surpasses this compulsive, exquisitely light-footed narrative.”
—ANTHONY CUMMINS, The Daily Mail
“De Kretser has again written a perceptive and articulate novel that blends acute observation and well-chosen details to create a sweeping story that is painfully close to home. With fascinating characters and beautifully nuanced writing, The Life to Come is a powerful exploration of the human condition and a compelling examination of how we look at each other and ourselves.”
—CAROL GLADSTEIN, Booklist (starred review)
“The Life to Come namechecks—with a characteristically ironic flourish—Patrick White and Christina Stead (‘safely great . . . safely dead’), and includes a tribute to the ‘fearless’ Shirley Hazzard. De Kretser belongs in that estimable company. She is every bit their equal as a stylist, and in her willingness to apply the acid.”
—JAMES LEY, Sydney Review of Books
“Exhilaratingly good writing . . . Each page yields sparkling sentences and keen observations.”
—SUZI FEAY, Literary Review
“De Kretser’s great strength as a writer is her capacity to render the sensory and the sensual . . . She is tactile and hyper-observant, as are her characters; the pleasure of this novel is in watching her watch them.”
—BEEJAY SILCOX, Australian Book Review
“The Life to Come is an intense reading experience . . . Michelle de Kretser has written a comic lament of disarming force.”
—MICHAEL MCGIRR, The Age
“Superb, ambitious and deeply moving.”
—GEORDIE WILLIAMSON, The Weekend Australian
“The Life to Come is a remarkable achievement . . . It’s a book of myriad miniature overlapping stories, shot through with subtle leitmotifs, which brilliantly captures the expectant thrum of a world where the future is always about to happen.”
—The Saturday Paper
“The Life to Come is elegant, funny, and full of life.”
—RICHARD NEVILLE, judging panel chair of the 2018 Miles Franklin Literary Award
“De Kretser renews Patrick White’s tragicomic vision, offering loving homage to it in her beautiful but wounding Sydney . . . In this remarkably full novel, each character struggles with a sense that life is elsewhere.”
—DELIA FALCONER, The Monthly
also by michelle de kretser
The Rose Grower
The Hamilton Case
The Lost Dog
Questions of Travel
Springtime
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously.
Copyright © 2017 by Michelle de Kretser
First published in Australia in 2017 by Allen & Unwin
First published in the United States in 2018 by Catapult (catapult.co)
First Catapult paperback edition: 2019
All rights reserved
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-948226-15-8
Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-936787-82-1
Catapult titles are distributed to the trade by Publishers Group West
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