Since the Accident

In a suburban Sydney pub, a woman tells her younger sister the story of how her life has changed since a serious car accident. She speaks of the blossoming of romance, the rediscovery of her long dormant creativity: her ability to draw. And yet an exhibition comes to nothing, a lover is abandoned. She leaves everything behind. In the driving monologue of her own narrative, the younger sister attempts to make sense of her life and the events and thoughts that have obsessed the elder since the accident.

Since the Accident is a valuable addition to the Australian novel. It effectively realises a formal alternative to the realist tradition that dominates contemporary Australian writing, yet does so in an accessible way that deserves to find a wide readership. This ability to explore innovative novelistic form that cuts to the core of the human condition without lapsing into gratuitous experimentation is very rare, and to be highly commended. Anthony Macris

Jen Craig's voice is a rare one in the field of emerging Australian literary talent. Both her novels, Since the Accident and Panthers and the Museum of Fire, exhibit a distinctive style which features careful precision of the narrative voice, coupled with an intriguing digressive approach. This draws the reader into stories that seem endlessly reflective, yet the novels quickly display a logic and continuity that is sustained until the very last sentence. She has the astonishing ability to make us believe she has held every word of the story in her head, then delivered it onto the page in a seamless whole. There is a powerful hypnotic effect upon the reader of Craig's work, and it is not too much of a stretch to compare her work with the otherwise incomparable WG Sebald. Debra Adelaide