Hurdy Gurdy

A powerful and important novel with a crucial and timely feminist message, from the Stella Prize-shortlisted author of Little Gods.

She tells me to sit down, says that she has something I need to hear and it's that they don't cut hair or set curls. Well they do sometimes, but not always, she says. She takes off her rubber glove and tosses it to the sink. We help them with a problem. We make it go away.

In a near-future Australia, the world has changed. A small circus caravan travels the countryside performing for dwindling audiences. Matriarch Queenie works outside the law, helped by high-diver Win, nineteen and yearning for love. By night, they gather under the dark sky joined by philosophical clown Valentina, and Girl, who they found at the side of the road. By day, they offer other services: hairdressing for women and a close shave for men. But while women come to them for help, men tend to disappear.

And in the distance, a reverend and his nun-like companion preach against alcohol, adultery and abortion. Two groups on an ideological collision course in a landscape altered by time and human error, while overhead a space mission has gone wrong.

Hurdy Gurdy sits alongside classics like The Handmaid's Tale, Station Eleven and The Natural Way of Things, and is a provocation; compelling and haunting. It's a feminist revenge tale about the choices that women have to make and asks the big questions:

Can beauty be found in times of great darkness?

How do we go on?