Vortex (Hall novel)
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| Author | Rodney Hall |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Novel |
| Publisher | Picador |
Publication date | 2024 |
| Publication place | Australia |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 464 pp. |
| Awards | 2025 The Age Book of the Year Award – Fiction, winner |
| ISBN | Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value). |
Vortex is a 2024 novel by the Australian author Rodney Hall originally published by Picador.[1]
It was the winner of the 2025 The Age Book of the Year Award – Fiction.[2]
Synopsis
[edit | edit source]The novel follows a cast of characters in Brisbane as the city prepares for the vist of the newly crowned Queen Elizabeth II in 1954. It is also the coming-of-age story of 16-year-old Compton Gillespie who meets an older German immigrant, Beckmann, who becomes his mentor in life.
Critical reception
[edit | edit source]James Ley, writing in Australian Book Review noted that this book is "a substantial addition to Hall's already substantial body of work. It is a novel that draws its full measure of vitality from its concerted attempt to recreate a particular time and place. Capacious and richly descriptive, it at times earns the labels loose and baggy; it sets out to cover an extraordinary amount of historical ground."[3]
On The Conversation website, Tony Hughes-d'Aeth found much to admire in the writer's style and prose: "It would be remiss to not mention the beauty of this novel, which emerges at different scales. Most immediately, it is a joy to read the limpid prose that skips about with such mercurial agility. The style is somehow both languid and aphoristic. There is a stinging sharpness in the novel's droll humour that speaks to a certain foundational absurdity."[4]
Awards
[edit | edit source]- 2025 The Age Book of the Year Award – Fiction, winner[2]
- 2025 Voss Literary Prize, longlisted[5]
Notes
[edit | edit source]Author's note: For my daughters, Imogen, Delia and Cressida (all unutterably dear to me) who - having constantly stimulated the work with facts and ideas - will each recognize her touch in these pages.
See also
[edit | edit source]References
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