Alexandra Long

It's interesting to note that despite growing up in Australia, I don't seem to have a great affinity for contemporary Australian fiction. Which is why I surprised myself by being so taken by this collection of stories set mostly in Sydney (and one set in America, where the story idea is so disparate from the rest of the collection, I'm curious as to its genesis).

I usually find that over-familiarity with a place or topic makes it difficult for me to suspend my belief long enough to surrender show more myself into the fictionalised version. However, probably due to nostalgia, I loved being a fictional geographic detective, spotting all the places that Long names here, and deciphering all the places she doesn't!

The stories themselves are very conversationally/personality driven, a trait that was greatly accentuated by Long's ability to capture the different voices. Her modern and fresh prose seduced me slowly and unwittingly (I was the unwitting one, she probably knew exactly what she was doing) with fun turns of phrases that stop you in your track like one lovingly crafted by Raymond Chandler. The overall mood can only be best described as that of a 90s hard-boiled young urban professional mundanity with an underlying hint of menace.

And I loved it. show less