This Devastating Fever

'This Devastating Fever is a very good novel. Howard Jacobson, New Statesman 'I loved this book. I absolutely loved it. Christos Tsiolkas, author of The Slap and Barracuda 'This is a great novel of enduring significance and enormous beauty. Sydney Morning Herald Sometimes you need to delve into the past, to make sense of the present. Alice had not expected to spend most of the twenty-first century writing about Leonard Woolf. When she stood on Morell Bridge watching fireworks explode from the rooftops of Melbourne at the start of a new millennium, she had only two thoughts. One was: the fireworks are better in Sydney. The other was: is Y2K going to be a thing? Y2K was not a thing. But there were worse disasters to come. Environmental collapse. The return of fascism. Wars. A sexual reckoning. A plague. Uncertain of what to do she picks up an unfinished project and finds herself trapped with the ghosts of writers past. What began as a novel about a member of the Bloomsbury Set becomes something else altogether. Complex, heartfelt, darkly funny and deeply moving, this is a dazzlingly original novel about what its like to live through a time that feels like the end of days, and how we can find comfort and answers in the past.