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Fiona McFarlane, a young Australian with an award- winning bestseller already under her belt, has produced a really intelligent and sharp clutch of short stories in The High Places – wonderfully observed vignettes of the messiness and makeshift nature of family life, relationships, beliefs. If empathy is the crystal meth of Hollywood, McFarlane's shtick is to wheel on the outsiders, religious maniacs, wives as dry as frozen creeks, scientists, and fathers driven bonkers by loneliness and heat. She's particularly good on heat, its slippery power to melt a human being in its Petri dish of drought and empty skies. Among the 13 stories, gathered over 10 years, favourites are Mycenae, Good News for Modern Men, Unnecessary Gifts. Not all the stories succeed entirely, but the writing is so good that even the gammier ones have their wonders. One to watch.
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