The High Places

March 21, 2016
McFarlane (The Night Guest) crafts engrossing stories of tranquil lives shaken by catastrophe, crisis, or circumstance. In “Exotic Animal Medicine,” a car crash in the English countryside tests reluctant newlyweds. A woman having an affair with a married man hides a more damaging secret from her widowed sister in “Rose Bay.” And a schoolchildren’s clever game spirals into mutiny against a teacher in “Buttony.” The collection’s oddball, “Good News for Modern Man,” is a successful foray into hallucinatory black humor: a biologist captures a specimen of the mysterious colossal squid in a bay on a remote South Pacific island, loses his faith in God, and gains a friend in the ghost of Charles Darwin. Together he and the ghost pass hazy afternoons leering at swimming Catholic schoolgirls and hatch a plan to free the fantastical cephalopod, whom the biologist has named Mabel. Throughout the stories, the animal world serves as a foil to humans’ belief in an ordered universe. McFarlane has a knack for bringing out the macabre, especially in children, and shows herself as an exceptionally fine writer of the ways coercion and care entangle us. Agent: Stephanie Cabot, the Gernert Company.

March 1, 2016
In her debut short story collection, McFarlane (The Night Guest, 2013) limns the hidden spaces of relationships. It's impossible to say, at the onset of any of these stories, how grounded they will stay in the familiar. Some are entirely realistic. "The Mycenae" follows a humble Australian couple on vacation in Greece with their patrician American friends and plumbs the emotional disconnect. "Cara Mia" employs an even lighter touch to glimpse the inner life of a young Australian teen with a subtly complex family life. "Those Americans Falling from the Sky" has a similar flavor, but its wartime setting and the fate of some stationed American soldiers tinge it with mortality. Death has a larger presence in "Exotic Animal Medicine," which traces an unconventional wedding day in England; "Man and Bird" incorporates death as well as the sublime. Several of the stories levitate into surreal planes with very different moods. "Buttony" reads like sci-fi horror, while "Violet, Violet" is playful in its exploration of loneliness and the question of an uncanny bird. "The Movie People" does the same for connection and escapism--townspeople involved in a local film shoot refuse to let the magic go--and is quite funny. The title story is brutal and biblical. "Unnecessary Gifts" is a bit of an outlier, an exercise in suspense that teases readers' expectations. Yet all these feats are pulled off while never technically escaping reality. McFarlane writes with a deceptively plain hand, and her style gives shape to the unanswered questions of how well we can ever know each other or ourselves. What she leaves out is more telling than what she describes. It's hard to feel warmth from these stories; passions are mitigated or tamped down. But the writing is clever and skillful in spades.

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March 15, 2016
Her debut novel, The Night Guest (2013), earned McFarlane a reputation as a wise-beyond-years storyteller. This debut short story collection reinforces it. Whether through two couples' awkward reunion decades beyond their once close friendship or a pragmatic man's plotted life and ill-fated marriage to an art-loving woman, the stories juxtapose characters' outward expressions with inner thoughts and judgments while unraveling and examining the threads of personal relationships. McFarlane nimbly blends real and invisible aspects of the world and contrasts nihilistic and spiritual themes in the lives of an exotic veterinarian, a teacher, and a sheep-raising family threatened by drought. Fresh language and insights will make readers want to pause and savor, such as when a reverend who talked too much about death, and with the wrong emphasis made his parishioners think: Eternity seemed less glorious, then; it seemed a cheerless thickening of time, rather than a new expanse. It's a joy to dwell in McFarlane's rich new world.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)

June 1, 2016

McFarlane's collection of short stories is a strong follow-up to her well-received first novel, The Night Guest, which was shortlisted for the 2014 Miles Franklin Award, Australia's most prestigious literary honor. The characters in her 13 stories, set mostly in Australia, have seemingly ordinary lives, and yet just under the surface awaits tension, anxiety, mystery, and even a touch of the bizarre. A young, recently married vet in the collection's first story, "Exotic Animal Medicine," is on her way to treat a big cat when she and her new husband have a serious car accident. In "Good News for Modern Man," a research scientist struggles with malarial delusions, believing he is communicating with Charles Darwin, while he also plots to release a trapped colossal squid. These stories are well crafted, with sensual, nuanced writing that will register deep emotion with readers. The gifted author is capable of describing physical and emotional landscapes equally well. VERDICT The arc of every story will take readers to high places, and it would be no surprise to see this highly recommended collection short listed for some prestigious prize. [See Prepub Alert, 11/9/15.]--Faye Chadwell, Oregon State Univ., Corvallis

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 1, 2015

Having triumphantly debuted with The Night Guest, which won the inaugural Voss Literary Prize and the Barbara Jefferis Award, McFarlane returns with a collection of short stories that explore characters at the emotional borders. In "Mycenae," for instance, a middle-aged couple endure a catastrophic vacation with old friends, while the title story shows an Australian farmer struggling with an awful drought.

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from June 1, 2016

McFarlane's collection of short stories is a strong follow-up to her well-received first novel, The Night Guest, which was shortlisted for the 2014 Miles Franklin Award, Australia's most prestigious literary honor. The characters in her 13 stories, set mostly in Australia, have seemingly ordinary lives, and yet just under the surface awaits tension, anxiety, mystery, and even a touch of the bizarre. A young, recently married vet in the collection's first story, "Exotic Animal Medicine," is on her way to treat a big cat when she and her new husband have a serious car accident. In "Good News for Modern Man," a research scientist struggles with malarial delusions, believing he is communicating with Charles Darwin, while he also plots to release a trapped colossal squid. These stories are well crafted, with sensual, nuanced writing that will register deep emotion with readers. The gifted author is capable of describing physical and emotional landscapes equally well. VERDICT The arc of every story will take readers to high places, and it would be no surprise to see this highly recommended collection short listed for some prestigious prize. [See Prepub Alert, 11/9/15.]--Faye Chadwell, Oregon State Univ., Corvallis

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.