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Red Shoe Review: The Australian What the writers read December 09, 2006 Some of the biggest names in literature recommend the books that kept them reading this year.
Debra Adelaide
I'm not sure if history v fiction is still simmering somewhere but my choices are novels where history is vital but invisible, where the authors never err in thinking their job is to explain anything -- or, worse, teach us something -- about the past. Ursula Dubosarsky's previous book, Theodora's Gift, won a series of awards this year and so one wonders where next for her because The Red Shoe (Allen & Unwin) is even better (and has already picked up the Queensland Premier's Award). The fairytale The Red Shoes, the Petrov affair, the continuing aftershocks of a world war: these are all delicately overlaid on to a story about a family threatened by barely acknowledged pressures and where the connection between private suffering and public scandal and humiliation is subtly yet powerfully asserted. Dubosarsky's characters, especially the children, are compelling: familiar and innocent yet also intense, distant and disturbed, seeing both too much yet not quite enough about themselves and the world.
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