Theory & Practice

It’s 1986, and ‘beautiful, radical ideas’ are in the air. A young woman arrives in Melbourne to research the novels of Virginia Woolf. In bohemian St Kilda she meets artists, activists, students—and Kit. He claims to be in a ‘deconstructed’ relationship, and they become lovers. Meanwhile, her work on the Woolfmother falls into disarray.

Theory & Practice is a mesmerising account of desire and jealousy, truth and shame. It makes and unmakes fiction as we read, expanding our notion of what a novel can contain.

Michelle de Kretser, one of Australia’s most celebrated writers, bends fiction, essay and memoir into exhilarating new shapes to uncover what happens when life smashes through the boundaries of art.

‘Thrillingly original.’ Sigrid Nunez

‘I loved it…raw, funny, truthful, youthful’ Tessa Hadley

‘a comic and, ultimately, moving window onto the universal human capacity for self-deception.’ New York Times

‘I’ve read it twice…The more you look at it, the more it offers you.’ Kate Evans, ABC News