Springtime: A Ghost Story

Description

"Picking up her pace, Frances saw a woman in the leaf-hung depths of the garden. She wore a long pink dress and a wide hat, and her skin was a creamy white. There came upon Frances a sensation that sometimes overtook her when she was looking at a painting: space was foreshortened, time stood still." When Frances met Charlie at a party in Melbourne he was married with a young son. Now she and Charlie live in Sydney with her rescue dog Rod and an unshakeable sense that they have tipped the world on its axis. They are still getting their bearings - of each other and of their adopted city. Everything is alien, unfamiliar, exotic: haunting, even. Worlds of meaning spin out of perfectly chosen words in this rare, beguiling and brilliant ghost story by Miles Franklin Literary Award-winning writer Michelle de Kretser.

Michelle de Kretser is the author of The Rose Grower, The Hamilton Case, The Lost Dog and Questions of Travel, which won the 2013 Miles Franklin Award.

A dark gem of a book... One reads Springtime not for its shock value - this tale is much more subtle than that - but for the way De Kretser explores the nature of ambiguity and for her deliciously unsettling descriptions. * The Independent * A gorgeous, delicately surprising piece of writing. * New York Times Book Review * Thrillingly self-aware and lightfooted... the real pleasure of Springtime lies not in its emotional acuity or even de Kretser's marvellous control of her narrative but in its sophistication and playfulness. * Weekend Australian *