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A review by scribepub
Between a Wolf and a Dog by Georgia Blain
Blain just gets better and better. The clarity, warmth, and precision of Between a Wolf and a Dog brings to mind the formal beauty of an exquisitely cut gemstone. Blain looks at the big questions — mortality, grief, forgiveness — through the lens of one family’s everyday struggle to love each other. This portrait of marriage and work, of sisterhood, mothers, and daughters is resolute and clear-eyed; so commanding and beautifully written it made me cry.
Charlotte Wood, Author of The Natural Way of Things
[An] elegant, intelligent and affecting novel from a writer at the height of her powers.
The Saturday Paper
Heartfelt, wise, and emotionally intelligent, Between a Wolf and a Dog is a beautifully tender exploration of the complications of family love, self-knowledge, and the struggle for forgiveness.
Gail Jones, Author of A Guide to Berlin
Blain is a writer of such lucidity and strength that her characters speak, undeniably, for themselves … What makes it possible to contain tragedy in words, so that the reader enters into the experience and passes through it, cleansed? The Greek playwrights had their own answers to this question; but the question, I suspect, is far older than their version of it. Each generation of authors must find the right words for writing about death. Part of the reason Between a Wolf and a Dog succeeds so well is that everything in the novel is heartfelt without being in the least sentimental.
Dorothy Johnston, Sydney Morning Herald
What a marvellously clear eye Georgia Blain has for the ways in which we love and harm one another. Whether she is observing a “coconut-ice” grevillea or meditating on everyday consolations and sorrows, Blain is a quietly profound writer and this is a remarkable book.
Michelle De Kretser, Author of Questions of Travel
Between a Wolf and a Dog is an elegantly told story describing the ambiguities within human relationships. Each evening, when my children slept, I would enter the world of this book — coming to know a flawed, courageous, and creative family of characters, as they struggled to be good, to be whole, and finally, to let go.
Sofie Laguna, Author of The Eye of the Sheep
Picking a favourite Georgia Blain novel is like picking a favourite child … Blain intelligently asks the big questions — about mortality, grief, forgiveness and how hard it can sometimes be to love those we’re supposed to.
North and South
Captures the elusive moment when it's time to forgive, when it's time to stop fighting.
Australian Women’S Weekly
Blain writes enchantingly about the interstices of life, the places where morality and meaningfulness blur, and characters try to justify their actions or deal with their emotions … lyrical and lucid.
Herald Sun
On a rainy day in Sydney, pivotal moments from each character’s past are revisited to illuminate the present. Blain’s domestic detail and her life-affirming pace make this novel substantial and sincere.
Blanche Clark, Daily Telegraph
In graceful prose, Blain’s characters attempt to celebrate the important things in life: love, work, sisterhood and marriage; and struggle as those things unravel … A heartbreaker.
Psychologies
Whenever I need reminding of the preciousness of ordinary life I return to this stunning novel of forgiveness and family, which gives clear, beautiful voice to the fierce luck of being alive.
Charlotte Wood, The Age Best Books of 2016
A heartbreaking, beautiful novel.
Toni Jordan, The Age Best Books of 2016
Like all her novels, Between a Wolf and a Dog explores the often unarticulated complexities of the intersection of the personal and the political with exquisite grace and intelligence.
James Bradley, Australian Book Review Best Books of 2016
My favourite work of fiction in this year was Georgia Blain’s lush and loss-ridden Between a Wolf and a Dog. It’s a novel about the ways in which we hurt each other, or are hurt by the world, yet it is hopeful and redemptive in the small moments and minute joys that it charts.
Fiona Wright, Australian Book Review Best Books of 2016
[A]n elegant novel, written in lucent and, at times, luminous prose. It is a work of delicately detailed emotion and beautiful balance, and it is so well paced that its narrative is utterly compelling. It is a remarkable portrayal of family relationships, and the complex and often competing desires and sensitivities that drive them, but it is mostly a book about love and forgiveness, and holding on to our good fortune and our loved ones, even and especially in the face of loss. It is heartfelt and resonant, and a remarkable novel that lingers long after its final page.
Fiona Wright, Weekend Australian
Charlotte Wood, Author of The Natural Way of Things
[An] elegant, intelligent and affecting novel from a writer at the height of her powers.
The Saturday Paper
Heartfelt, wise, and emotionally intelligent, Between a Wolf and a Dog is a beautifully tender exploration of the complications of family love, self-knowledge, and the struggle for forgiveness.
Gail Jones, Author of A Guide to Berlin
Blain is a writer of such lucidity and strength that her characters speak, undeniably, for themselves … What makes it possible to contain tragedy in words, so that the reader enters into the experience and passes through it, cleansed? The Greek playwrights had their own answers to this question; but the question, I suspect, is far older than their version of it. Each generation of authors must find the right words for writing about death. Part of the reason Between a Wolf and a Dog succeeds so well is that everything in the novel is heartfelt without being in the least sentimental.
Dorothy Johnston, Sydney Morning Herald
What a marvellously clear eye Georgia Blain has for the ways in which we love and harm one another. Whether she is observing a “coconut-ice” grevillea or meditating on everyday consolations and sorrows, Blain is a quietly profound writer and this is a remarkable book.
Michelle De Kretser, Author of Questions of Travel
Between a Wolf and a Dog is an elegantly told story describing the ambiguities within human relationships. Each evening, when my children slept, I would enter the world of this book — coming to know a flawed, courageous, and creative family of characters, as they struggled to be good, to be whole, and finally, to let go.
Sofie Laguna, Author of The Eye of the Sheep
Picking a favourite Georgia Blain novel is like picking a favourite child … Blain intelligently asks the big questions — about mortality, grief, forgiveness and how hard it can sometimes be to love those we’re supposed to.
North and South
Captures the elusive moment when it's time to forgive, when it's time to stop fighting.
Australian Women’S Weekly
Blain writes enchantingly about the interstices of life, the places where morality and meaningfulness blur, and characters try to justify their actions or deal with their emotions … lyrical and lucid.
Herald Sun
On a rainy day in Sydney, pivotal moments from each character’s past are revisited to illuminate the present. Blain’s domestic detail and her life-affirming pace make this novel substantial and sincere.
Blanche Clark, Daily Telegraph
In graceful prose, Blain’s characters attempt to celebrate the important things in life: love, work, sisterhood and marriage; and struggle as those things unravel … A heartbreaker.
Psychologies
Whenever I need reminding of the preciousness of ordinary life I return to this stunning novel of forgiveness and family, which gives clear, beautiful voice to the fierce luck of being alive.
Charlotte Wood, The Age Best Books of 2016
A heartbreaking, beautiful novel.
Toni Jordan, The Age Best Books of 2016
Like all her novels, Between a Wolf and a Dog explores the often unarticulated complexities of the intersection of the personal and the political with exquisite grace and intelligence.
James Bradley, Australian Book Review Best Books of 2016
My favourite work of fiction in this year was Georgia Blain’s lush and loss-ridden Between a Wolf and a Dog. It’s a novel about the ways in which we hurt each other, or are hurt by the world, yet it is hopeful and redemptive in the small moments and minute joys that it charts.
Fiona Wright, Australian Book Review Best Books of 2016
[A]n elegant novel, written in lucent and, at times, luminous prose. It is a work of delicately detailed emotion and beautiful balance, and it is so well paced that its narrative is utterly compelling. It is a remarkable portrayal of family relationships, and the complex and often competing desires and sensitivities that drive them, but it is mostly a book about love and forgiveness, and holding on to our good fortune and our loved ones, even and especially in the face of loss. It is heartfelt and resonant, and a remarkable novel that lingers long after its final page.
Fiona Wright, Weekend Australian