Theory & Practice: The new novel from the two-time winner of the Miles Franklin Literary Award

One of the most anticipated literary releases of the year, this gripping novel changes the game on what fiction can be and do. ‘Thrillingly original.’ Sigrid Nunez ‘One of the living masters of the art of fiction.’ Max Porter ‘Michelle de Kretser, one of the best writers in the English language, has written her most brilliant book yet. It is, in short, a masterpiece.’ Neel Mukherjee It’s 1986, and ‘beautiful, radical ideas’ are in the air. A young woman arrives in Melbourne to research the novels of Virginia Woolf. In bohemian St Kilda she meets artists, activists, students-and Kit. He claims to be in a ‘deconstructed’ relationship, and they become lovers. Meanwhile, her work on the Woolfmother falls into disarray. Theory & Practice is a mesmerising account of desire and jealousy, truth and shame. It makes and unmakes fiction as we read, expanding our notion of what a novel can contain. Michelle de Kretser, one of Australia’s most celebrated writers, bends fiction, essay and memoir into exhilarating new shapes to uncover what happens when life smashes through the boundaries of art. PRAISE- ‘Brilliant and mesmerising.’ Gleaner ‘Perfect for a summer read, but also with a timeless appeal.’ Good Weekend ‘Utterly absorbing.’ Felicity Plunkett , Saturday Paper ‘Ambitious and dazzling ‘ Men Yiman, Big Issue ‘In the midst of a late coming-of-age plot effervescent with romantic and intellectual misadventure, de Kretser considers memory-how we enshrine our cultural heroes and how we tell ourselves the stories of our own lives-with absolute rigor and perfect clarity. Structurally innovative and totally absorbing, this is a book that enlivens the reader to every kind of possibility. I savoured every word.’ – Jennifer Croft, author of The Extinction of Irena Rey ‘ Theory & Practice blazes with intelligence, passion and wit. I devoured it, greedily, in a single glorious sitting.’ Sarah Waters ‘Michelle de Kretser is a genius-one of the best writers working today. She is startlingly, uncannily good at naming and facing what is most difficult and precious about our lives. Theory & Practice is a wonder, a brilliant book that reinvents itself again and again, stretching the boundaries of the novel to show the ways in which ideas and ideals are folded into our days, as well as the times when our choices fail to meet them. There’s no writer I’d rather read.’ V.V. Ganeshananthan, author of Women’s Prize for Fiction and Carol Shields Prize award-winning Brotherless Night ‘De Kretser perceptively evokes how maternal figures, both birthright and adoptive, maintain a hold on us, despite our attempts to distance ourselves…A form-melding book contending with colonialism, the disharmony that can arise between our purported ideals and how we live, the depths of jealousy and shame, and motherhood and the maternal figures who shape us…An inquiry into what fiction can look like and what it can achieve.’ Jack Callil, Guardian ‘Sharp-witted and mesmerising…The narrator’s clever political insights and beautiful depictions of art and literature offer readers a view into a captivating mind. De Kretser is at the top of her game.’ Publishers Weekly (starred review) | ASIN : 1923058142 | ISBN13 : 9781923058149.0 | ISBN-13 : 978-1923058149