LOLA IN THE MIRROR
by Trent Dalton (Fourth Estate, $36.99)
Trent Dalton, author of the hit semiautobiographical novel returns to the streets of his hometown, Brisbane, for this heart-rending story of a daughter and her mother living in a scrapyard in the city’s West End in a 1987 Toyota Hiace van with four flat tyres. Reminiscent of Demon in Barbara Kingsolver’s our narrator is at an exquisitely vulnerable stage in her life. At 17, with a fierce artistic talent, this young woman is sunny and curious. At 13, she decided to live boldly, to cartwheel through life rather than walk. She doesn’t know her
