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Harriett Gilbert talks with Michelle De Kretser about her 8th novel, and winner the 2023 Rathbones Folio Fiction Prize 'Scary Monsters'.
This diptych novel consists of the tale of two immigrants, one in the past, and one in a dystopian future that seems all too possible. Which story to start with? That’s the reader’s decision.
In the past, Lili. Her family migrated to Australia from Asia when she was a child. Now, in the 1980s, she teaches in Montpellier, in the south of France. Her life revolves around her desires to carve out a space for herself in ‘le centre historique’, and become a great woman like Simone de Beauvoir. She tries to make friends, observes the treatment of other immigrants to France who don’t have the shield of an Australian passport, and continually has to dodge her creepy downstairs neighbour, as stories of serial killers dominate news headlines.
In the future, Lyle works for a government department in near-future Australia where Islam has been banned, a pandemic has only recently passed, and the elderly are encouraged to take advantage of ‘The Amendment’ - a law that allows, if not encourages, assisted suicide. An Asian migrant, Lyle is terrified of repatriation and spends all his energy on embracing 'Australian values' - which in this future involve rampant consumerism, an obsession with the real estate market, and never mentioning the environmental catastrophe even as wildfires choke the air with a permanent smoke cloud. He's also preoccupied by his callously ambitious wife, his rebellious children and his elderly mother who refuses to capitulate to his desperate desire to invisibly blend in with society.
We love it, not just because of the playful dual structure, but because Michelle’s writing tackles the monsters - racism, misogyny, ageism - with keen observations and biting humour, shining a light not just on how society treats newcomers, but how we relate to our idea of our shared history, and what kind of future will be built from the world we live in now.