Emily Maguire is the author of fiction and non-fiction. Her 2016 novel An Isolated Incident garnered short list noms for the Stella Prize and the Miles Franklin. It explored the reverberations within a community around a horrific act of violence against a young woman.
Maguire is a master of closely drawn character and the population of her novels feel almost like a neighbour or a workmate in the ways they jump off the page.
Her latest novel Love Objects takes us into Sydney’s Inner West where Nicole has lived pretty much her entire life. It’s a modest house but Nic has always said her family has a bed there if they ever need it.
Nicole hasn't had much in the way of family after her mum died and her sister moved to Brisbane. When Michelle left she took Lena, Nic’s niece.
Lena and her brother Will grew up worshipping their Aunty Nic. Her house was an escape from home and she supported their every endeavour unconditionally. When Lena moved to Brisbane Nic was devastated.
Now Lena’s back in Sydney studying and every Sunday she and Nic meet up for lunch. When Aunty Nic misses their date one Sunday, Lena goes in search of her aunt. Only to make a shocking discovery…
It’s hard to know whether to leave this synopsis on that click baity cliffhanger. The shocking revelation is designed to garner quick response, even judgement from the reader and then complicate those initial impressions.
As I mentioned earlier Emily Maguire is masterful in her realisation of character. Nic is simultaneously close and relatable, then at turns completely foreign in her thinking. MAguire’s brilliance is to bring us so close into her life that we are able to sit with the discomfort of knowing there are no easy answers for Nic in her life.
A key understanding of the dynamic of Love OBjects is in the relationships between Nicole, Lena and Will. MAguire wants to explore what the ethicist Peter Singer would call our expanding circle.
Within their dynamic we have a love that looks like that within the typical nuclear family (for whatever value that term still holds) Nic has always viewed Lena like a daughter and was thrilled to have her back in Sydney. The events of the novel challenge both of their perceptions of this relationship as actions are perceived as betrayals and the ties that bind start to look more tenuous.
Will returns to the family after an absence that began with a stint in prison that has impacted his ability to feel at peace. Will exemplifies an open secret that becomes almost a barrier to his inclusion anywhere. Try as he might to just be, he is always vigilant that he will only be judged by a single action.
I’ve skirted nicely around the central tension of Love Objects and left out some key plot points because that is a part of why we read; to be surprised and challenged by what we find on the page. Suffice to say that in its exploration of love, community and connection Love Objects is the perfect book to challenge our world as we look to a post covid normal.
