AustLit

'A mesmerizing otherworldly tale about love, memory and redemption from a masterly Australian storyteller

'The crumbling marble angel is Vega's most ambitious restoration project yet, but she thinks she can manage it, if she could just find somewhere to house the 500-kilo statue while she works. Her father, Vince, has the solution- the abandoned Seafarers' Hotel, which sits alone at the end of a winding coastal road, offers both the space and quiet Vega craves.

'The hotel also holds other surprises, however. The chandeliers are home to dive-bombing canaries, the ballroom occasionally hosts a troupe of tango-dancing farmers, and one of the bedrooms is occupied by an inept handyman who might be even more broken than Vega.

'As Vega restores the fragile angel to its former glory, can she also find a way to pick up the pieces of her life and begin anew?' (Publication summary)

'Freud’s couch

'A horizontal body is sure to daydream, to fragment one’s sense of self and, more dangerously, prone to cultivate erotic thoughts. Lying down = letting your thoughts get away with you.

'Freud thought this to be perfect. His couch was a simple thing; wrapped in an oriental rug, upholstered with springs and horsehair stuffing. Fragments, nonsense, unruly words were spoken from that couch, words that did not, of their own accord, create a narrative.' (Introduction)

'Vera and David have been passionately in love since the day they met more than twenty years ago. They live in the Blue Mountains where Vera is a sculptor and David makes furniture. Their son, Ben, is at university in Sydney.

'Or at least he was. What the Light Hides begins five months after Ben’s death, an apparent suicide. Vera is trying to pick up the pieces, but David cannot let go, cannot believe that Ben is dead. He goes to Sydney, ostensibly to work, but cannot get Ben out of his mind. He keeps seeing him in the street, visits the room where he was living, goes in pursuit of Ben’s friends. His refusal to come to terms with the death of his son is destroying his relationship with Vera, but he cannot help himself, in spite of all the evidence. David is risking everything.'

'Winter, Denmark, a young girl, an old woman, an isolated farmhouse: Grandmother M caresses the horses, talks to them tenderly, but has no love to give the girl. She seeks intimacy elsewhere.

'Into this icy landscape, into this emotional wasteland, steps a stranger. Has he walked across the frozen sea?

'The long, bleak winter will see more than one death. Who is to blame? Can redemption be found by speaking words of love?'

Source: ABC Radio National's website, http://www.abc.net.au/rn/
Sighed: 09/10/2007

'Inspired by the story of Annie, Darwin's daughter who died at the age of ten, this is a dialogue between the evolutionary theorist and the mythical Orpheus.

The debate between the positivist and the aesthete covers the delicate terrain of love and loss and the relative virtues of art and nature, self-sacrifice and survival.

We see a glimpse not only of Charles Darwin the scientist but also the Victorian family man and we travel with Orpheus as he remembers his journey to the underworld in search of Eurydice. But this time the myth has a twist. And this time Darwin's theory does not provide a satisfactory explanation, even for him.' (ABC Radio National, http://www.abc.net.au/rn/arts/airplay/s1593358.htm)