Rawson, Jane
Entry updated 25 November 2022. Tagged: Author.
(? - ) Australian journalist, editor and author whose first novel, A Wrong Turn at the Office of Unmade Lists (2013), allows some gonzo rhapsody to enliven her portrait of late twentieth-century California, but does not quite venture into the fantastic. Formaldehyde (2015) is a rare recent example of Absurdist SF, though laced with Magic Realism, with issues of Identity acidly evocative of the work of Franz Kafka in an occasionally unfocused Near Future setting. Of more specific sf interest, From the Wreck (2017) is a tale of First Contact embedded in an historical narrative; in this case the Alien, who is a Shapeshifter, is saved from shipwreck by a man who, after her disappearance, remains haunted by her. There are clear thematic resemblances to Karen Joy Fowler's Sarah Canary (1991), though Rawson's focus on her protagonist's sense of irretrievable loss (see Exogamy) distinguishes this book from its predecessor. [JC]
Jane Bryony Rawson
born Canberra, Australia
works
- A Wrong Turn at the Office of Unmade Lists (Melbourne, Victoria: Transit Lounge, 2013) [pb/Peter Lo and Tess Rice]
- Formaldehyde (New South Wales: Xoum Publishing, 2015) [pb/]
- From the Wreck (Melbourne, Victoria: Transit Lounge, 2017) [pb/Peter Lo]
- A History of Dreams (Lidcombe, New South Wales: Brio Books, 2022) [pb/]
links
previous versions of this entry