The Death of Noah Glass

(Paperback)

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Description

Winner of the 2019 Prime Ministers Literary Award for Fiction

Shortlisted for the 2019 Miles Franklin Literary Award

The art historian Noah Glass, having just returned from a trip to Sicily, is discovered floating face down in the swimming pool at his Sydney apartment block. His adult children, Martin and Evie, must come to terms with the shock of their fathers death. But a sculpture has gone missing from a museum in Palermo, and Noah is a suspect. The police are investigating.

None of it makes any sense. Martin sets off to Palermo in search of answers about his fathers activities, while Evie moves into Noahs apartment, waiting to learn where her life might take her. Retracing their fathers steps in their own way, neither of his children can see the path ahead.

Gail Joness mesmerising new novel tells a story about parents and children, and explores the overlapping patterns that life makes. The Death of Noah Glass is about love and art, about grief and happiness, about memory and the mystery of time.

Reviews

Told masterfully from the perspectives of three finely drawn characters, The Death of Noah Glass combines an enjoyable escapade involving art theft, mafia conspiracy, romance, and a suspicious death with a literary exploration of grief, identity and the power of the past to damage present lives. Fans of Jones will not be disappointed, and new readers should find much to recommend it. * Books+Publishing *
In all of Gail Joness writing, words bump up against images from art and cinemavisual keys to convey what narrative may not. * Saturday Paper *
The Death of Noah Glass is among (Joness) finest work and I expect it will be among this years outstanding novels. * Australian *
The plot is one of Joness most straightforward, but as always it is the links and echoes, the patterns that she sees in life and the way such patterns are represented and become part of our internal landscape that inform and fascinate, and make her work so rewarding. * Adelaide Advertiser *
The Death of Noah Glass is a superb novel full of sadness and mystery. It further confirms Gail Joness reputation as one of our great writers. * Readings *
Swooningly lyrical, carrying the reader along in the wake of its beauty. * Australian Book Review *
This polished, pensive novel that swirls so much about, tantalising with implications amid the patterned intricacy of linked scenes, returning symbols and motifs. Its a book that needs to be read closelyThe Death of Noah Glass is engaging. Its a book about ways of seeing and about the gaps that persist between vision and understanding. And in the end this novelwhich is dedicated to the memory of Joness fatheris also about patrimony as the pattern and measure that fathers leave behind them. * Saturday Paper *
Beautifully litJones writing demands that the read slow down in order to enjoy every word. Martin is an artist, but then again so is the author, and she too notices hue, texture and nuance. * Big Issue *
This is a novel dominated by rich and vivid descriptions of personal interiors and public exteriors, of thought processes and intense associations wrought by the places Martin and Evie find themselves as they uncover truths. * Herald Sun *
In poetic prose that calls for slower reading to fully appreciate its metaphoric meaning, the narrative, as the mystery is untangled, explores the effects of grief and loss and the theme of time. You could re-read this book for the pleasure and stimulation of the language alone. * Good Reading *
Jones writes with perception on the emotional chaos wrought by grief, and how difficult it can be to operate within relationships when there is so much that will remain unknown. * Otago Daily Times *
The Death of Noah Glassis a transportive novel, dreamy and evocative, and full of richly-drawncharacters. Its sure to send first-time readers of Gail Jones on a journey through her extensive backcatalogue. * Culturefly *
A complex piece of fiction, carefully assembled and exquisitely executed. * A Life in Books *
From the Renaissance to the contemporary era, from Italy to Australia and back via Japan, Jones demonstrates not a quaint equivalence between the sister arts, but an unruly dynamic of disjunction, rupture, play and appropriation that sets off a force field of narrative and semiotic energies. * Sydney Review of Books *
An oblique and poetic novel a vivid, unsettling study of mortality. * Sunday Times *
A beautifully evoked novel about loss, grief and family. * Woman & Home *
Gail Joness mesmerising prose and intricate structuring made The Death of Noah Glass my top novel-reading experience. -- Susan Sheridan * Best Books of 2018, Australian Book Review *
The Death of Noah Glass wraps a richly layered family story in an art theft mystery that travels from Western Australia to Sydney and Sicily. -- Susan Wyndham * Best Books of 2018, Australian Book Review *
'Weaving together multiple narratives (Noah's, Martin's, and Evie's), the novel sketches a family portrait full of love, loss, and regret. * Kirkus *

Author Bio

Gail Jones is one of Australias most celebrated writers. She is the author of two short story collections and eight novels, and her work has been translated into several languages. She has received numerous literary awards, including the Prime Ministers Literary Award, the Age Book of the Year, the South Australian Premiers Award, the ALS Gold Medal and the Kibble Award, and has been shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award, the International Dublin Literary Award and the Prix Femina tranger. Originally from Western Australia, she now lives in Sydney.