The ever-intellectually-stimulating Krissy Kneen has been shortlisted for the 2018 Stella Prize for her novel An Uncertain Grace.
An Uncertain Grace is the finest work yet from one of Australia’s most daring literary voices, Brisbane bookseller and award-winning memoirist, poet and novelist Krissy Kneen. She is also the award-winning author of the memoir Affection, the novels Steeplechase, Triptych and The Adventures of Holly White and the Incredible Sex Machine, and the Thomas Shapcott Award-winning poetry collection Eating My Grandmother. She has written and directed broadcast documentaries for SBS and ABC television.
AN UNCERTAIN GRACE is a highly provocative read that masterfully offers thoughtful speculation on the future of technology, memory and sexuality.
— Books+Publishing
An Uncertain Grace is a novel in five parts by one of Australia’s most inventive writers. Moving, thoughtful, sometimes playful, it is about who we are—our best and worst selves, our innermost selves—and who we might become.
Some time in the near future, university lecturer Caspar receives a gift from a former student called Liv: a memory stick containing a virtual narrative. Hooked up to a virtual reality bodysuit, he becomes immersed in the experience of their past sexual relationship. But this time it is her experience. What was for him an erotic interlude, resonant with the thrill of seduction, was very different for her – and when he has lived it, he will understand how.
Later…
A convicted paedophile recruited to Liv’s experiment in collective consciousness discovers a way to escape from his own desolation.
A synthetic boy, designed by Liv’s team to ‘love’ men who desire adolescents, begins to question the terms of his existence.
L, in transition to a state beyond gender, befriends Liv, in transition to a state beyond age.
Liv herself has finally transcended the corporeal – but there is still the problem of love.
Read an interview with Krissy Kneen about her writing and An Uncertain Grace here.
Read, listen and watch more by Krissy here.
An Uncertain Grace
An Uncertain Grace is available now in all good bookshops, on the Text website (free postage) and as an ebook.
