Theory & Practice

Synopsis

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, a dismaying discovery throws her work on ‘the Woolfmother’ 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.

Author

Michelle de Kretser was born in Sri Lanka and emigrated to Australia as a teenager. She was educated in Melbourne and Paris. She is the author of six other novels, most recently Scary Monsters, which won the 2023 Rathbone Folio Prize. She has also won the Miles Franklin Award (twice) and has been longlisted for both the Man Booker and Orange Prize. She lives in Sydney.