Friends and Dark Shapes
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Shortlisted for the 2021 Queensland Literary Awards
A group of housemates in Sydney’s inner city contend with gentrification, divisive politics, stalled careers, their own complicated privilege as second-generation Australians, and the evolving world of dating in this moving, funny, and stylish debut novel.
Sydney’s inner city is very much its own place, yet also a stand in for gentrifying inner-city suburbs the world over. Here, four young housemates struggle to untangle their complicated relationships while a poignant story of loss, grieving, and recovery unfolds.
The nameless narrator of this story has recently lost her father and now her existence is split in two: she conjures the past in which he was alive and yet lives in the present, where he is not. To others, she appears to have it all together, but the grief she still feels creates an insurmountable barrier between herself and others, between the life she had and the one she leads.
Wry, relatable, lyrical, and beautifully told, a book about politics, desire, youth, relationships and friends, Friends and Dark Shapes introduces a bold new Australian voice to American readers.
“Astonishingly assured and full of razor sharp observations about what it means to live precariously in a changing city. It’s hard to believe this is Bedford’s first novel.”—Jenny Offill, author of Dept. of Speculation and Weather
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Bedford beautifully portrays the life of an Australian Indian writer struggling with grief a year after the death of her father. The unnamed 29-year-old woman mourns alone in Sydney, her mother having returned to her native India to cope, and her boyfriend having broken up with her. She finds community with her housemates in suburban Redfern: former teen model Niki, whose father eluded the Khmer Rouge; Sami, whose Palestinian parents want him to marry a Muslim; and Bowerbird, a guitarist from California. The narrator muses, "We are turning thirty and things don't look like we imagined they would." Notably so for Bowerbird, whose sister has the same type of cancer that killed the narrator's father. Along the way, the narrator reminisces about her father's dark moods, which he described as "sea creature days." For a spell, she works on a series of magazine pitches about Redfern's gentrification while ruminating on misconceptions about other neighborhoods ("people tread their well-worn grooves and resist knowing more"). It's an illuminating series of episodes, but unfortunately, Bedford abandons them to dwell on the narrator's processing of grief. While the author does a great job portraying the friends, the reminiscences of "dark shapes" remain a bit too ephemeral. Still, she pulls off an insightful view of a city in flux.
