THIRST FOR SALT, by Madelaine Lucas (Allen & Unwin $36.99) is out on April 4. There is sensual pathos and emotional purity in the vivid, wistful remembrance of lost first love captured in Madelaine Lucas' debut novel, Thirst for Salt.
The nameless narrator has returned to her nomadic mother's home in New South Wales' Blue Mountains after years of living and teaching in New York and comes across a prizewinning photograph of her former older lover, Jude, whom she met when she was 24 and he was 42"their ages like a palindrome or a postcode from an outer Sydney suburb".
She has lost touch with Jude, who had little presence on social media, but she instantly recognises "the dark patch beneath each eye like a stain, a new vulnerability to his expression... his daughter overlooking a green valley at a farm or vineyard... low grey fog lingering above the hills like a memory of smoke". In that moment, time and distance collapsed and even though it was a beautiful photograph, she is surprised by how much it hurt, remembering how "if I had remained at Sailors Beach and I had a child with Jude, if I had married him, as I once imagined I would, my bridal train would have been made of salt and sand".
この記事は New Zealand Listener の April 01-07 2023 版に掲載されています。
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この記事は New Zealand Listener の April 01-07 2023 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です? サインイン
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