Beam of Light

Shifts in tone, setting and narration create a sense of the uncanny in Beam of Light, Kinsella's haunting collection of stories.

A man is disturbed by the sight of a familiar dining table and chairs atop an impending bonfire of bulldozed trees, a girl finds a fox skeleton and feels compelled to protect its spirit by dispersing its bones over the valley. A couple are invited to dinner by Christians new to town, an occasion that quickly turns heavy and strange. Two men awkwardly meet again when their daughters attend the same ballet class, and a man and woman struggle to balance the threats of addiction and poverty with the joys and hopes of a new baby.

Stories range in location from Ireland to Germany to Greece to the Australian countryside, threatened by catastrophic heat, land clearing, housing estates and strip malls. Kinsella's characters, so often on the edge, sear the consciousness.

Praise for John Kinsella's writing:

'The stories never forget they were written on land with history; Aboriginal land that was stolen, and the blood that was shed, and the skin of colonisation over a deep past.' — Rachel Watts, Westerly

'Impressively skilful and incisively wise.' — Riley Faulds, Plumwood Mountain Journal

'What they all have in common is depth of characterisation most commonly found in a full-length novel.' — Erich Mayer, Arts Hub