…Ursula Dubosarsky is an Australian author who understands the value of subtlety. While her books are always carried by the fantastic stories they tell, they are enriched by the themes, concerns and questions which are allowed to whisper softly in the margins… 

The Red Shoe, like all of Dubosarsky’s novels, capture the essence of Australian life. It appeals to the reader’s senses, so that he or she can feel the heat rising from tins roofs and asphalt, smell the eucalypts and taste the lamb, peas and potatoes served up for dinner. This, along with the extracts from newspapers, makes the 1950s setting come to life and it adds to the realism of the story. 

This realism is what makes The Red Shoe such a quietly powerful novel: like most of Dubosarsky’s works, it revels in the interior life of ordinary people and, as a result, possesses a luminous authority. Her characters seethe with life and vitality, inviting the reader into a world which makes the familiar seem marvellous. 

Ronni Phillips is an English honours student at Sydney University