THIS IS A GRAPHIC PORTRAIT OF LOSS, AND A GLIMPSE OF THE STRUGGLE TO CONTINUE IN THE SHADOW OF REGRET.
Sunbathing
by Isobel Beech (Allen & Unwin, $32.99)
Can a novel be unrelentingly sad, deeply intelligent, and still suffused with an ethereal beauty and goodness? It sounds impossible, yet Isobel Beech’s debut Sunbathing can be described this way.
A young woman, reeling from the sudden death of her father, escapes Melbourne and the realities of her life to go and live with friends Giulia and Fabrizio in the Italian countryside in the months before their wedding. The novel unwinds as
