8 (More) Fiction Books We Can’t Wait to Read in 2022
“So please, oh please, we beg, we pray, go throw your TV set away, and in its place, you can install a lovely bookshelf on the wall.” - Roald Dahl
In a never-ending attempt to feel like I might have some control in life, I’ve once again scoured the internet and made a list of some of the forthcoming books I absolutely cannot wait to get my hands on.
If you’ve managed to work your way through our list from the first half of the year (well done), feel free to get stuck into this new one (maybe it’ll help you with some illusion of control, too!).
Sixty-Seven Days by Yvonne Weldon
Publisher: Penguin
Published: July 2022
After hitting send on our NAIDOC Week list, I immediately came across this debut novel and was left kicking myself - so obviously, it goes straight to the top of this list. Introducing us to Evie, raised in the heart of Aboriginal Redfern, Evie remembers and feels connected to much of her culture and heritage. But Evie is also harbouring a dark pain. When Evie meets James, her world is thrown upside down as she dives headlong into an intense and captivating love - until one event forces them to contemplate the strength of that love. With a beautiful sense of place, this tale of first love “suffused with Wiradjuri Dreaming, family and culture, about a future dreamt and a future taken” is not to be missed.
Life Ceremony by Sayaka Murata
Publisher: Granta
Publish Date: July 2022
If you’ve yet to discover the wild world of Sayaka Murata, this could be just the entry you need to get a feel for her provocative style - it’ll either leave you hungry for more or (as may likely be the case) wondering WTF did I just read? First published in 2019, this collection of short fiction brings together a culmination of Murata’s fantastic work. Mixing her famed taboo-breaking body horror with feminist revenge fables, Life Ceremony is a “wild ride to the outer edges of one of the most original minds in contemporary fiction”.
Enclave by Claire G Coleman
Publisher: Hachette Australia
Publish Date: June 2022
Dystopian, speculative fiction with a twist from the powerhouse that is Claire Coleman, Enclave explores a “future of surveillance, disruption and segregation that echoes the horrors of a colonial past.” Christine lives in a palace called ‘Safetown’ - a gated community where all needs are provided for, and everyone is monitored at all times. Media outlets within Safetown warn the inhabitants that outside isn’t safe, with ongoing wards and violence. Safetown is precisely what it promotes - safe. It isn’t until her best friend disappears that Christine begins to question whether she and her family are getting the whole truth. The media tells them outside the city isn't safe; there are wars and violence, but inside they are safe and free. After her best friend disappears, Christine begins to wonder if her family and the media are telling the whole truth. So Christine starts asking questions - and that’s when the real danger starts. Confronting the “ugly realities of racism, homophobia, surveillance, greed and privilege and the self-destructive distortions that occur when we ignore our shared humanity”, the latest offering from Coleman looks set to be an intense page-turner and eye-opener in equal measure.
The Last White Man by Mohsin Hamid
Publisher: Riverhead Books
Publish Date: August 2022
I was late to the party for Mohsin Hamid’s debut Exit West (2017), but it was a brilliant novel and one of my top recent reads. The Last White Man looks set to follow suit with a surrealist yet profound look at race, gender, and culture in contemporary society. Anders awakes one morning to discover that his skin has turned dark. His reflection in the mirror is now a stranger, and as Anders seeks to understand this transformation, he learns more and more stories like his around the world. As Anders and his new lover, Oona, attempt to make sense of what’s happening, they and their families are faced with vital questions about love, belonging, loss, and what our shared bonds are genuinely based on. Hamid offers a tender portrait of a vividly imagined future, inviting us to rethink who we think and who we might be.
Bon and Lesley by Shaun Prescott
Publisher: Giramondo Publishing
Publish Date: September 2022
The second novel from Prescott explores the impact of unexpected catastrophes on human relationships, bonds, and ties. Bon fragmented steps out of his own life when his train is forced to stop outside a small, almost abandoned town in the middle of nowhere. He falls into the company of strangers, brothers Stephen and Jack Grady, and later Lesley. Together they form an unlikely makeshift family. Fueled by cheap liquor and fried food and “bound by a deep and incomprehensible love”, the group find themselves taking on a world of “peculiar anarchies and regulations, of secret roads and portals that lurk beneath the country’s failing design”. Likened to the works of Calvino, Kafka and Abe, Bon and Lesley looks to offer something unique in the realm of surrealist fiction.
Her Fidelity by Katharine Pollock
Publisher: Penguin Vintage Australia
Publish Date: August 2022
As a fan of High Fidelity, I am all kinds of intrigued by this one. Set in one of Australia’s few remaining independent record stores, Her Fidelity offers a funny, confessional take on the classic with a female gaze. Kathy works at Brisbane’s Dusty’s Records and has since she was a young teenager. Now approaching thirty, and with her friends moving on and growing up, she’s starting to wonder where her life is heading. Think classic rock n roll, coming of age fun with a decidedly feminist edge. Pollock’s debut novel is based on her experiences working across record stores in Brisbane and Sydney, so you can expect lots of retail authenticity and heaps of pop-culture music references (that I am very much here for).
Seeing Other People by Diana Reid
Publisher: Ultimo Press
Publish Date: October 2022
Reid’s debut, Love & Virtue (2021), really took me by surprise when I read it earlier this year, and I’m super keen to see what she has to off in her second novel. Following the lives of two very different sisters, Eleanor and Charlie, are emerging after two years of lockdowns and excited to finally be pursuing the things they want in life - they just have to work out what those things are. Taking another searing look at close female relationships, Reid pushes the dynamic to its limit, offering us a darkly funny tale that looks set to follow hot in the footsteps of her award-winning debut.
Limberlost by Robbie Arnott
Publisher: Text Publishing
Publish Date: October 2022
The third novel from Tasmanian-local Robbie Arnott diverts a little from his previous surrealist fiction but still hones in on the relationship insights and ties to place that many have come to adore in his writing. While Ned’s brothers are away at war, their whereabouts unknown; Ned hunts for rabbits, selling their pelts in the hope he will be able to save enough to purchase a small boat. His father and sister try to maintain Limberlost, their family orchard, while Ned spends his summer dreaming of water. His choices during this time shape his life, and the fate of his family as his story unfolds in the following chapters. An “extraordinary chronicle of life and land: of carnage and kindness, blood ties and love”, Limberlost looks set to be a tale readers won’t quickly forget.
Elaine Mead is a freelance writer and book reviewer, currently residing in nipaluna (Hobart), Tasmania. She is passionate about the ways we can use literature to learn from our experiences to become more authentic versions of ourselves and obsessed with showing you photos of her Dachshund puppy. You can find her online under www.wordswithelaine.com.
