Grenville, Kate

(Australian, 1950– )

Sydney-born Grenville won the Orange Prize in 2001 with her fifth novel, The Idea of Perfection. This charming, funny book tells the story of a quite unexpected romance between awkward, timid engineer Douglas Cheeseman and thrice-married Harley Savage, an unnervingly abrupt Heritage worker with ‘a dangerous streak’. Without ever sinking into sentimentality, it captures exquisitely the isolated (and decidedly odd) setting of smalltown New South Wales.

Next try Grenville's first novel Lilian's Story (1985/6) and its companion-piece Dark Places (1995) (US: Albion's Story), which tell the stories of, respectively, Lilian Una Singer ('Lil') and her father Albion Gidley Singer. Daughter and father are brightly coloured characters, larger-than-life, Lil as vivacious and inspiring as Albion is nasty, misogynistic, and bitter. Separately the dual psychological portraits are powerful enough; together Grenville sets her stories in a juxtaposition which is unforgettable.

Murray Bail, Miles Franklin  DHa