AustLit

'A timely, haunting drama of utopian dreams confronted with baleful reality, Hall's new novel captures the bizarre appeal of religious cults. Catherine Byrne marries self-proclaimed prophet Muley Moloch and leaves 19th-century England with him and his eight female disciples to search for paradise on earth in the wilds of Australia. But life as a prophet's wife is not all that Catherine had expected; her first-person narration recounts a shipwreck, illness, death and outbursts of jealousy among the disciples. Muley's visionary charisma leads the group ever farther from civilization but does not draw them together, nor do the shared hardships of settling the wilderness, building two houses (one for Muley, one for the nine women, called the Household of Hidden Stars) and coping with apparitions that stare at them from the edges of the forests. After Muley disappears on a mysterious voyage, Catherine begins to see the apparitions more clearly; she alternates between enchantment and fear, wondering what is real and what is imagined. When the police arrive to investigate a brutal murder, Catherine vents her anger and frustration in a high-pitched, almost inchoate account of deception, betrayal, holy and unholy mysteries (including purported virgin births), and, finally, redemption.'

Source: Publishers Weekly https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-374-16704-2

'Edwin Page, a fussy middle-aged professor, no sooner bids farewell to his obstetrician wife, Cecilia, who accepted a fellowship abroad, when his new neighbors, Mrs. Botts and her sexy, twentyish daughter, Leila, arrive. Since they're locked out of their house, Edwin invites them in—and then can't get them to leave. He becomes obsessed with Leila and convinces himself that she is a perfect surrogate mother for the childless Cecilia.'

Source: Publisher's blurb (Persea ed.).

'A worthy successor to the prize-winning Just Relations, Hall's second novel to appear in this country is shorter and tighter, with the same mythical, almost mystical quality of an Australian legend, here distilled to the rambling memories of apparently senile Patrick Murphy. Patrick is outraged by the deathbed confession, in 1956, of Barney Barnett, a contemporary who was once betrothed to Patrick's sister Ellen. Barney says that 58 years ago he committed the brutal murders of three of Patrick's siblings: Norah, 27, Ellen, 18, and Michael, 29. (Hall uses an actual, unsolved murder case of 1898 and the real victims' names; no culprit was ever found.) Barnett's confession, a final try for some kind of fame or glory, is exposed as a hoax; he makes a grave error of fact and the Sydney police inspector grunts in disgust. Patrick's inner monologue does not at first reveal what he knows about the murders, although it's plain he knows a lot. As he ranges through his memories, describing childhood events from 70 years before, we are caught up in an extraordinary family of 10 children who lived with their tall, silent parents on a farm called Paradise, far away in the Australian farmlands...'

Source: Publishers Weekly https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-374-11889-1

'The back-of-beyond New South Wales hamlet of Whitey's Fall is the home of a secret, solitary boy seeking love, two young men who crave the same woman, and an earnest, bumbling, and provocative government man.' (Publisher's blurb)