The Anatomy of Truth
Kate Wild
Picador

Brigid Delaney described this novel in the Sydney Morning Herald's "Spectrum" as the literary equivalent of a bruise. It's apt.

The novel starts in a country town with two local girlfriends, Easter and Janey. Things get nasty when the town's only really eligible bachelor chooses to wed Easter. Janey's jealousy and spite reach bloody and murderous proportions.

Easter is packed off to oblivion — falsely accused of bashing her baby. She transforms herself from voiceless wimp to woman with self-esteem via years of prostitution … then returns to take her revenge on the town that persecuted her.

It's a pretty bizarre tale, told not without some cleverness. Wild pushes the envelope — though fortunately not as far as American Psycho's Bret Easton Ellis whom Wild admires. The question is: for a first novel has Wild attempted to turn too many tricks, or just enough to make her work stand out?.

An interesting book.

Marjorie Lewis-Jones