lost for words?

[adelaidesean]

Amanda is reading again for the Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature, which means we get to take a quick survey of what blurbs have been offering in the last two years of Australian literature.

Family secrets are perennial, of course, along with small country towns, fractious siblings and romantic blasts from the pasts. Some things will never change.

This year a newcomer to the field has leapt out at us.

“loss and survival, friendship, love” (Swimming, Enza Gandolfo)
“loss, death and grief” (Headlong, Susan Varga)
“love, family and loss” (A History of the Great War, Peter McConnell)
“love, loss and hope” (Pescador’s Wake, Katherine Johnson)
“love, loss and learning” (The Rainy Season, Myfanwy Jones)
“love and loss” (Fugitive Blue, Claire Thomas)
“love and loss” (The Nature of Ice, Robyn Mundy)
“love, loss and grieving” (I Dream of Magda, Stefan Laszczuk)
“loss, and the search for home” (The Daughters of Moab, Kim Westwood)
“love, loss” (Wanting, Richard Flanagan)

Could there be something in the air, or is a thesaurus simply in order?

Comments

[seanwilliams.livejournal.com]

The two Fs: Family and Friendship.

The two Hs: Home and Heartbreak.

The three Is: Identity, Investigation and Intrigue.

(There's probably a whole Alphabet of blurbs, just waiting to happen!