{"title":"Jen Craig","description":"\u003cp\u003eExplore the intriguing literary world of \u003cstrong\u003eJen Craig\u003c\/strong\u003e, an accomplished Australian author known for her unique approach to storytelling. Jen Craig's novels delicately weave together intricate narratives that offer deep insights into the human experience, inviting readers to reflect on their own perceptions and emotions.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAmong her notable works is \u003cem\u003ePanthers and the Museum of Fire\u003c\/em\u003e, a novel that demonstrates her ability to intertwine personal memory with philosophical inquiry, offering a meditative exploration of the past's influence on the present. Another gripping read, \u003cem\u003eSince the Accident\u003c\/em\u003e, captures readers with a compelling narrative centred on the aftermath of a traumatic event, exploring themes of guilt, recovery, and transformation.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eFurthermore, her book \u003cem\u003eWall\u003c\/em\u003e provides a profound examination of obstacles, both literal and metaphorical, encouraging readers to ponder the limitations that shape our lives and thoughts. These works place Jen Craig firmly in the realm of \u003cstrong\u003eGeneral Fiction\u003c\/strong\u003e, appealing to those who appreciate character-driven stories filled with depth and introspection.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eEngage with Jen Craig's collection and discover stories that will linger in your mind long after the final page is turned.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"panthers-and-the-museum-of-fire-by-jen-craig-9781922571625","title":"Panthers and the Museum of Fire","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA woman sets out from a quiet corner of Glebe in Sydney towards the bustle of Broadway and Surry Hills, carrying with her the manuscript of a childhood friend who has recently died. Her thoughts surge between past and present as she strives to understand the effect on her of her dead friend's manuscript, \u003ci\u003ePanthers and the Museum of Fire\u003c\/i\u003e. Not only does the manuscript remind her of what she might prefer to forget—youthful ambitions, an abandoned friendship, entanglements with religion and anorexia—it also ignites in her a creative impulse.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003ePanthers and the Museum of Fire\u003c\/i\u003e defies every piece of well-meant advice handed out to novelists. The language is strange and obsessive, its central character is written with no regard as to whether the reader will like or care about her, the plot is obscure and frustrating, the setting is never picturesque. And yet it succeeds brilliantly. — Ali Jane Smith\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003ePanthers and the Museum of Fire\u003c\/i\u003e will be among my top reads for the year. Bold, original and urgent, it is a complex work of fictionalised-memoir in the style of writers such as Karl Ove Knausgård and Sheila Heti. — Angie Andrewes, \u003ci\u003eBookseller \u0026amp; Publisher\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e...the book plays out not like a Hitchcockian song, but rather like the slow burn of consciousness. Regrets and secrets bubble to the surface in this part-Bernhardian\/part-Murnanian meditation on the lengths we go to fool ourselves while at the same time protecting ourselves from others. The long paragraphs jam up on each other like ice floes against a berg, as they carry strange recursive music and that of perfectly pitched cold-hearted thought... — Greg Gerke, \u003ci\u003eVol. 1 Brooklyn\u003c\/i\u003e (he is also the author of several books)\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eJen Craig is an unusual and fascinating writer, bravely digging a tunnel out of the prison of narrative convention. — Julian Anderson, \u003ci\u003eRain Taxi\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Hachette Aotearoa New Zealand","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46713936675052,"sku":"9781922571625","price":32.95,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/14127373482872.jpg?v=1754337879"},{"product_id":"since-the-accident-by-jen-craig-9781922571632","title":"Since the Accident","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn a suburban Sydney pub, a woman tells her younger sister the story of how her life has changed since a serious car accident. She speaks of the blossoming of romance, the rediscovery of her long dormant creativity: her ability to draw. And yet an exhibition comes to nothing, a lover is abandoned. She leaves everything behind. In the driving monologue of her own narrative, the younger sister attempts to make sense of her life and the events and thoughts that have obsessed the elder since the accident.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eSince the Accident\u003c\/i\u003e is a valuable addition to the Australian novel. It effectively realises a formal alternative to the realist tradition that dominates contemporary Australian writing, yet does so in an accessible way that deserves to find a wide readership. This ability to explore innovative novelistic form that cuts to the core of the human condition without lapsing into gratuitous experimentation is very rare, and to be highly commended. \u003cb\u003eAnthony Macris\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eJen Craig's voice is a rare one in the field of emerging Australian literary talent. Both her novels, \u003ci\u003eSince the Accident\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003ePanthers and the Museum of Fire\u003c\/i\u003e, exhibit a distinctive style which features careful precision of the narrative voice, coupled with an intriguing digressive approach. This draws the reader into stories that seem endlessly reflective, yet the novels quickly display a logic and continuity that is sustained until the very last sentence. She has the astonishing ability to make us believe she has held every word of the story in her head, then delivered it onto the page in a seamless whole. There is a powerful hypnotic effect upon the reader of Craig's work, and it is not too much of a stretch to compare her work with the otherwise incomparable WG Sebald. \u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003eDebra Adelaide\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Hachette Aotearoa New Zealand","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46714765312236,"sku":"9781922571632","price":34.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/ca0118d82e4d04dbd197f05fc4997685.jpg?v=1759168920"},{"product_id":"wall-by-jen-craig-9781922571618","title":"Wall","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003eShortlisted, Miles Franklin Literary Award 2024\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eA woman returns to Australia to clear out her father's house, with an eye to transforming the contents into an art installation in the tradition of the revered Chinese artist, Song Dong. What she hasn't reckoned with is the tangle of jealousies, resentments, and familial complications that she had thought, in leaving the country, she had put behind her—a tangle that ensnares her before she even arrives.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003eWall\u003c\/em\u003e is an extraordinarily compacted work of rich complexity, humour, and sadness. Its narrator's steadfast desire to explain herself, to clarify the seemingly unclarifiable, is as close to mirroring the roiling momentum of real consciousness that I've read in a modern novel. When I read Jen Craig I find it impossible to imagine a better way to capture the mysterious workings of the mind—its inadvertent epiphanies, its loose but determined associations, its cruelly recurring entrapments—without writing just like her. But no one else could. — Shaun Prescott\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Hachette Aotearoa New Zealand","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46847069880556,"sku":"9781922571618","price":32.95,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9a46e5b62e07da17a4a24b07d9724008.jpg?v=1759187794"}],"url":"https:\/\/bookhero.live\/collections\/jen-craig.oembed","provider":"Book Hero","version":"1.0","type":"link"}