I'm a bit behind, I think, but I read in the Age today that 12 books have been longlisted for the inaugural Stella Prize, and one of them - how exciting! - is our very own Margo Lanagan's Sea Hearts, which I must read ASAP. She is one of my favourite authors, someone (along with a few other brilliant spec fic writers who aren't Margaret Atwood***) I'm always pushing I-don't-like-genre-fiction-I-only-do-litfic people to read. I've read and loved her short story collections and adored Tender Morsels - I still have no clue what all the kerfuffle was about. In fact I was well into the book before I realised I'd already scooted through the witchy-dwarfy sex scene that had raised a few hackles. Where was my outrage? I'm convinced certain people were reading a different version of the book from another, far more sordid dimension. That's the only way I can account for their perception of it being so vastly and wildly and so emotively different from mine.
But anyway, back to Sea Hearts. Must read it. I'm sure it's brilliant. How can it not be?
And go, Margo!
***whom I also love, but so do the I-don't-like-genre-fiction-I-only-do-litfic people to the extent that they don't count her as spec fic. Literary cherry picking.
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