Helen Hodgman: 2 books

In Helen Hodgman’s dazzlingly written debut a young woman is trapped in a small city on an island at the end of the world—by motherhood and an absent husband, by busybody in-laws and neighbours, by a drab society yet to throw off the shackles of its colonial past. A darkly funny tale of a crack-up...

Jill and her dad are happy enough after her mother dies. Theirs is a simple life in the outback, far from the big city where a coathanger is being built across a sparkling harbour. Until Jack arrives at their door one evening, and steps inside to find the skinny, wild-looking child sitting...