So far, there’ve been only positive reviews of my debut novel The Hands of Pianists. (I wouldn’t dare to predict that negative ones won’t come!) The book has been out a little over a month, and four critiques have been especially satisfying. Peter Craven’s rave, which I’ve written about already, is stupendous. My book is ‘virtuosic in its technique and grand in its achievement’, he wrote in The Weekend Australian. It’s written with ‘absolute gravity, grace and a moody, constantly …

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A publisher who helped to launch the careers of several distinguished writers, Hilary McPhee believes my debut novel The Hands of Pianists is ‘perfectly poised between silences and sounds, music-making and conversation’. She said she ‘loved its utter lack of pretension’. I’m delighted with the high praise, of course. With business partner Diana Gribble, Hilary launched Helen Garner, among other fine writers, via their imprint McPhee Gribble. Hilary’s endorsement complements Peter Craven’s critique on Saturday in The Weekend Australian. Peter …

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Esteemed literary critic Peter Craven has praised to the heavens my debut novel The Hands of Pianists . In Saturday’s The Weekend Australian,  he called it ‘virtuosic in its techniques and grand in its achievement’. Indeed, it’s hard to know where to start in quoting from Peter’s review. I’m over the moon, of course — Craven is the doyen of Australian critical writing.     He begins by calling Hands ‘an absolutely compelling literary novel’ written by a ‘born artist’. By …

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