Invented Lives

Knowing what you want is hard, accepting what is possible is harder still...

It is the mid-1980s. In Australia, stay-at-home wives jostle with want-it-all feminists, while AIDS threatens the sexual freedom of everyone. On the other side of the world, the Soviet bloc is in turmoil.

Mikhail Gorbachev has been in power for a year when twenty-four-year-old book illustrator Galina Kogan leaves Leningrad—forbidden ever to return. As a Jew, she's inherited several generations' worth of Russia's chronic anti-Semitism. As a Soviet citizen, she is unprepared for Australia and its easy-going ways.

Once settled in Melbourne, Galina is befriended by Sylvie and Leonard Morrow, and their adult son, Andrew. The Morrow marriage of thirty years balances on secrets. Leonard is a man with conflicted desires and passions, while Sylvie chafes against the confines of domestic life. Their son, Andrew, a successful mosaicist, is a deeply shy man. He is content with his life and work—until he finds himself increasingly drawn to Galina.

While Galina grapples with the tumultuous demands that come with being an immigrant in Australia, her presence disrupts the lives of each of the Morrows. No one is left unchanged.

Invented Lives tells a story of exile—exile from country, exile at home, and exile from one's true self. It is also a story about love.

'Goldsmith is a masterful storyteller who explores the complex themes of identity and love in her latest novel. Invented Lives deserves a wide audience.'
—Mark Rubbo, Readings Booksellers

'It is a fabulous book ... It lives on ... What I really loved was the changing seasons of all the characters, their inner beings, their outer beings, their strengths.'
—Drusilla Modjeska

'This is a compassionate and thoughtful depiction of one aspect of multicultural Australia ... Invented Lives will appeal to fans of Australian literary fiction for its depiction of rich inner lives, and the conflict between desire and reality.'
—Louise Omer, Books+Publishing