At Cambridge University, in the summer of 1992, Australian student Helen is completing her thesis on Joseph Conrad. But she is distracted by a charming and dangerous lover, Justin, and by a ghost manuscript, her anti-thesis, which she has left on a train.
Haunted by this loss and others, by Justin's destructive tendencies and by details of Conrad's life, Helen is unmoored. And then the drama of the lost manuscript sets in motion a series of events-with possibly fatal consequences.
In her masterly new novel, Gail Jones traverses the borders between art and life, between life and death, in a journey through literary history and emotional landscapes. Elegantly written, deftly crafted, One Another covers new territories of grief, memory and narrative.
One Another follows Helen, a PhD student from Tasmania, who is writing on the life of Joseph Conrad while coming to terms with a turbulent relationship with her boyfriend, Justin. A story within a story, the novel moves gracefully between Jones’ incredibly well-researched story of Conrad as he writes Heart of Darkness, and Helen’s life at Cambridge University in the 90s. What connects the two central characters is an obsession with writing the perfect story, and being away from home. Conrad’s roaming life at sea took him all over the globe, and under Helen’s eye we access intimate biographical detail of Conrad’s life – his sea voyages to Australia, his time in the Congo, his suicide attempt in France.
Written with beautiful, melodic language, Jones shifts between Helen’s story and her fixation with Conrad with a masterful hand. Ultimately it is a book about alienation and how a sense of belonging can come from afar: someone else’s past, or books. Great for fans of Richard Flanagan’s Question 7 and anyone who finds satisfaction from detailed biographies on literary figures.
- Claudia
