Fabulous Fiction Firsts #835, Debuts from Down Under

Thu, 03/28/2024 - 2:48pm by muffy

Greta & Valdin * *  by Rebecca K. Reilly, a Maaori novelist from Waitaakere, New Zealand, is a New York Times Editors’ Choice (also in downloadable eBook and audiobook). 

“We’re all strange, romantic emotional people in this family,” proclaims Linsh Vladisavljevic as he watches his two younger children navigate queerness, multiracial identity, and the familial dramas big and small. 

Linsh, an Auckland university professor of Biology is Russian Moldovan while wife, Betty is Māori. Daughter G (Greta), a graduate student in literature, shares an apartment with her brother Valdin - a former astrophysicist with O.C.D. who now hosts a tv travel show. The novel opens when a missed directed package plunges Valdin (who goes by V) into melancholy, pining for ex-boyfriend Xabi who moved to Argentina, while G is smarting from her painfully unrequited crush on a fellow tutor and tentatively reaching out to a charming fellow student. Then work sends V to Buenos Aires where he has to decide whether to reconnect with Xabi and what the future will hold for them.

“The story follows the duo in alternating first-person chapters as they navigate bad dates, bouts of insecurity and even encounters with racism, and as they come closer to understanding themselves and their desires.” (New York Times)

“Reilly herself is of Ngāti Hine and Ngāti Wai descent. In the wrong hands this could all be quirk for quirk’s sake, or a half-baked hybrid of Schitt’s Creek and The Royal Tenenbaums. But Reilly’s humor is so riotously specific, and the many moments of true poignancy so gently infused with that same humor, that the Vladisavljevics seem like no one but themselves….Say hello to your new favorite fictional family.“ (Kirkus Reviews)

Green Dot by Sydney writer/critic Madeleine Gray (also in downloadable eBook and audiobook) introduces readers to Hera Stephen, a 24 year-old comments-moderator for an online news outlet where she meets Arthur, a middle-age journalist (and her boss). With 3 arts-degrees, Hera is broke and living in Sydney with her lovely gay father. What started as message-based flirtation (hence the title, referencing the green dot that indicates a user is online) she soon finds herself falling into an all-consuming affair with Arthur though for years, she preferred women to men. Before long, Hera develops an obsession, which only grows stronger as Arthur refuses to leave his wife.

“As the book tracks the increasingly doomed love affair (including through the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic), the only thing keeping the narrative from devolving into something grim and cynical is Hera's dynamic and snarky voice….Her narration is peppered with references to music and pop culture, the things that define your personality in your 20s, when you're still searching, as Hera is, for some kind of identity.” (Kirkus Reviews) 

“Although ironic and flippant, Green Dot avoids nihilism, and is ultimately about the search for meaning through love. It vividly illustrates how someone can lose their perspective, principles and dignity in its name, ignoring overwhelming evidence of the probable conclusion.” (The Guardian)

Readers interested in examining why smart women expect their lovers to leave their wives, despite overwhelming evidence that the contrary is more likely, might be interested in Sally Rooney's Conversations With Friends, Imogen Crimp's A Very Nice Girl, and Laura Warrell's Sweet, Soft, Plenty Rhythm. 

 * * = 2 starred reviews