AustLit

'‘Hello. Jessica Weir? I’m sorry, miss, but this was the last number—’ ‘Matthew’s on his way home. He should be here soon.’ And only the ocean breathing into the silence as if her own chest were rising and falling without fail. As if his heart were still beating. As if nothing in the world had changed. ‘We’ve found a car, miss. No sign of a driver.’

'WHEN Jessica’s partner disappears into the dark Tasmanian forest, there is of course the mystery of what happened—the deserted car, the enigmatic final image on his phone. There is the strange circle of local women, widows of disappeared men, with their edgy fellowship and unhinged theories. And the forest itself: looming over this tiny settlement on the remote tip of the island.

'But for Jessica there is also the tight community in which she is still a stranger and Matthew was not. What secrets do they know about her own life that she doesn’t? And why do they believe things that should not—cannot—be true? For her own sanity, Jessica needs to know two things. Who was Matthew? And who—or what—has he become?'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Some time in the near future, university lecturer Caspar receives a gift from a former student called Liv: a memory stick containing a virtual narrative. Hooked up to a virtual reality bodysuit, he becomes immersed in the experience of their past sexual relationship. But this time it is her experience. What was for him an erotic interlude, resonant with the thrill of seduction, was very different for her—and when he has lived it, he will understand how.

'Later…

'A convicted paedophile recruited to Liv’s experiment in collective consciousness discovers a way to escape from his own desolation.

'A synthetic boy, designed by Liv’s team to ‘love’ men who desire adolescents, begins to question the terms of his existence.

'L, in transition to a state beyond gender, befriends Liv, in transition to a state beyond age.

'Liv herself has finally transcended the corporeal—but there is still the problem of love.

'An Uncertain Grace is a novel in five parts by one of Australia’s most inventive and provocative writers. Moving, thoughtful, sometimes playful, it is about who we are—our best and worst selves, our innermost selves—and who we might become.' (Publication summary)