AustLit

'Sofie Laguna has established herself as a writer who renders the world in vivid detail through the eyes of children. She skilfully shows how childhood can be punctured by brutality: the first-person protagonists of her two previous novels are betrayed by the adults who should protect them. Jimmy, the narrator of her Miles Franklin award-winning novel, The Eye of the Sheep, is autistic, and his struggles to understand the adult world are exacerbated by domestic violence. In Laguna’s next book, The Choke, Justine is in danger, surrounded by male aggression and menace. Both children are buffeted by chaos, failed by their families, and abandoned to navigate life in the aftermath of trauma.' (Introduction)