AustLit

'Justine Ettler’s Bohemia Beach negotiates the mind of Catherine Bell, an acclaimed concert pianist, as she comes to terms with her alcoholism, trauma and obsessive nature. Written entirely in first person, we shift time and place as the narrative reveals not only posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but inherited trauma and self-inflicted trauma within the character. Along the way Ettler taps into her previously established reputation for gritty, urgent and impulsive writing, leaving the reader writhing in discomfort as Catherine falls again and again.'  (Introduction)

'Receiving, reading and reviewing this book is a particular pleasure for Southerly, which published three sections of it as the manuscript was being developed. David Brooks and I independently selected Moreno Giovanonni’s work for respective issues we were editing and were in complete agreement that Giovanonni’s essays and fiction presented a truly original and compelling new voice in Australian literature. So I was unsurprised but thrilled to see that Black Inc had published The Fireflies of Autumn. Nor was I surprised that the book was shortlisted for the Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Fiction 2019 and the Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction 2018 and listed by Helen Garner as one of her favourite books in 2018. I was more prepared than others for the full volume. And yet, I was not. It is one of the most affecting books I have ever read.' (Introduction)

'This is a varied book thematically and stylistically, but also one held together by strong threads— climate change, ecology, animals, specific birds, personal reflection on subjectivity and vulnerability, and a perfectly poised irony that has that rare quality of being both empathetic and critical at once. Philip Neilsen is a known satirist, but one who has always had the ability to selfironise, and also critique the ills of the human world whilst being so very human in voice. “He” can both “tell” and observe, can deploy a complex array of emotions within the one poem. There is real grit in these poems—strong beliefs we might say—but also enough self-ironising reflection mixed with a pathos for the circumstances of daily life. The absurdities, the devastating contradictions of a human world that can’t appreciate the implications towards its own health by its mistreatment of animals, and the fraught relationship between the human and “natural world” are concentrated through Philip Neilsen’s obvious sympathies and care for the environment, for ethical human behaviour.' (Introduction)