Description
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. Michelle de Kretser bends fiction, essay and memoir into exhilarating new shapes to uncover what happens when life smashes through the boundaries of art.
Endorsements
'A genre-busting inquiry into life and art, youth and Virginia Woolf' — Guardian, Books to Look Forward to 2025
'I loved Theory & Practice... raw, funny, truthful, youthful' — Tessa Hadley
'Michelle de Kretser is to my mind one of the finest writers alive and Theory & Practice a lightning strike of a book' — Ali Smith