Who stole Picasso’s Weeping Woman? This novel could have the answer

FICTION PICK OF THE WEEK
Framed
Stuart Rosson,Brolga,$26.99

The theft of Picasso’sWeeping Woman from the NGV in 1986 is emblazoned in my memory,because,at the age of 10,I took a flash photo of the painting on my disposable Kodak after it had been returned and placed behind a protective barrier. The security guards were not amused. For Stuart Rosson,the connection is more personal. His brother,artist Peter Rosson,was framed for the art heist,and although cleared of wrongdoing,never recovered from the blow to his reputation,taking his own life in 2002. This novel fictionalises events notorious in Melbourne,including police being taunted by messages from a group calling itself the Australian Cultural Terrorists,and the recovery of the priceless painting from a Spencer Street station locker after an anonymous tip-off. The mystery of who stole the painting (and who framed Rosson’s brother) was never solved,and this speculative attempt to unravel it,from an author with strong motive to do so,explores a piece of cultural nostalgia Melburnians will find tantalising,regardless of how persuasive they find the novel.

Free
Meg Keneally,Echo,$32.99

Meg Keneally’s Free continues her passion for historical fiction set in convict Australia,and focuses on Molly Thistle,an indomitable woman who first made an appearance in Keneally’s novelThe Wreck. The character is loosely based on Mary Reibey,who was arguably the first Australian businesswoman (her image adorns the $20 note),and who’s no stranger to fictional treatment. Keneally liberally blends fact and fancy in this historical romance. The picaresque narrative begins in late 18th century England,with Molly dressing as a boy and fleeing on a stolen horse after a childhood prank goes horribly wrong. Sentenced to transportation,she will need intelligence,ambition and stoicism to navigate the brutality of the penal colony,find the love of her life,become a captain of industry,and defend her family’s interests against rivals and enemies. It’s a cut above most historical romance,lightly reminiscent of late 18th century literature without losing accessibility or popular appeal.

The Two Loves of Sophie Strom
Sam Taylor,Faber&Faber,$32.99

This is a sliding-doors novel that takes an Austrian Jewish boy in two radically different directions,after a house fire in 1933. In the first strand of the narrative split,Max saves his parents and lives as a Jew in 1930s Austria. In the second,his parents die in the fire,and Max,now disfigured,is adopted by an Aryan family. He assumes a new identity and is renamed Hans. Both strands have common elements and characters,notably the titular Sophie Strom,who seems to fall in love with Max/Hans regardless of the choices each makes. Most other characters behave more contingently,depending on social status and prejudice,and the power relationship perceived between them and the protagonist(s). This initially gives the reader interesting puzzles to solve and possibilities to ponder,but the device soon gets predictable,and although there’s reference to Freud and Jung – how could there not be in 1930s Austria – the novel has its share of psychological shallows.

The Winter Palace
Paul Morgan,Penguin,$34.99
Author ofThe Pelagius Book andTurner’s Paintbox,Paul Morgan turns in his latest novel to the outbreak of World War II,and the Polish “abduction” that resulted in the capture of a huge number of Polish soldiers and civilians,some held in POW camps,others forced into slave labour. We follow Anton and Elisabeth,a Polish army captain and his wife,as they’re torn apart by war. Each promises to return to their Winter Palace,whatever happens,but their courses diverge – Anton is imprisoned in Siberia,roves steppe and desert all the way to Palestine to fight with the Allies;Elisabeth faces the hideous prospect of being compelled to act as “mistress” to a Nazi overseer,before escaping and joining the resistance. Falsely told that Elisabeth died during the war,Anton migrates to Australia … Will the lovers ever be reunited? Alas,it’s hard to care much when the prose style is so inconsistent in ways that distract from the story.

NON-FICTION PICK OF THE WEEK
How to Knit a Human
Anna Jacobson,NewSouth,$34.99

In 2011 Anna Jacobson,sensing something bad that she could not control was happening to her,told her brother that she would “save the family by going into the forest”. The next day she was involuntarily hospitalised. At the age of 23 she received electroconvulsive therapy (ECT),and when she emerged from it had only a skeleton sense of her “self”. Her memoir is among other things a record of recovering that self. The result is a concentrated,strikingly poetic portrait of someone descending into what she calls her “madness”. For much of the book she employs the third person and refers to herself as “she”,a distancing strategy that often chillingly accentuates the eerie,intensity of the experience. Like a kind of magic lantern show,Jacobson takes the reader inside the mind of the subject,to hauntingly powerful effect.

A Little History of the Australian Labor Party
Nick Dyrenfurth&Frank Bongiorno,UNSW Press,$27.99

What this updated study so expertly condenses is the amazing story of a unique political beast – the ALP. Above all,it’s a ripping yarn with a gallery of heroes,larrikins,rats and hard-working true believers. The authors take us back in informed,engaging writing to its quasi-mythological birth in 1891 – which may have been under The Tree of Knowledge in Barcaldine or the Sydney suburb of Balmain – through to the Albanese government. The first Labor government in the world,in Queensland,may have lasted only seven days,and the first federal Labor government in the world only four months (and if you think our politics is volatile now,have a look at the turn of the 20th century),but that party,through sunshine and shadow,has been around ever since,among the most enduring in world politics.

Your Time Starts Now
Julie Goodwin,Ebury Press,$36.99

Abused at seven,attempted suicide at 17 and depression. Does that sound like the stuff ofMaster Chef’s inaugural winner? Julie Goodwin’s memoir takes the reader behind the facade of celebrity status and,by extension,the celebrity industry. But the book’s main raison d’etre is to document these experiences for others going through the same thing. It’s also,of course,a book full of positives – the varying outcomes of theMaster Chef win,but crucially,the strength and support of her family. She never labours things,though. In a conversational style that sometimes accentuates the darker side of this success story,she also provides,along the way,a vaguely Orwellian account ofMaster Chef house,which emerges as a kind of culinary boot camp. This memoir is unpretentious and frank.

Guts Glory and Blunder
Andrew Faulkner,Big Sky Publishing,$32.99

The battle for the French village of Noreuil in the north of France in April 1917 may be one of the forgotten encounters of the World War I,but it had the lot. A digger described the plan as “one of the most grandiose and stupid ever drawn up” and 130 men died in one day. Andrew Faulkner’s lively and inevitably poignant account focuses on the largely South Australian 50th Battalion,who carried out the frontal attack. He meticulously gives us cameo portraits of individual soldiers,personalising the cold statistics of what was a combination of bloodbath,blunder,and incredibly larrikin heroics too. But he also unearths some disquieting truths,such as a platoon commander being shot from behind by an Australian soldier – “fragged”,as they say – and Australian machine gunners firing on their own troops in the confusion of the battle. It was a deadly victory.

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