This Devastating Fever

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SHORTLISTED FOR THE VICTORIAN PREMIERS AWARD FOR FICTION 2023

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, colonial administrator, publisher and husband of one the most famous English writers of the last hundred years becomes something else altogether.

Complex, heartfelt, darkly funny and deeply moving, this is Sophie Cunninghams most important book to date 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.

PRAISE FOR THIS DEVASTATING FEVER

a very moving novel, laced with wit, pathos, and ferocious truths The Australian

Extinction, climate change, the pandemic, love and loss are all there in this vital, virtuoso candle in a jar for eternity. Australian Womens Weekly

This Devastating Feveris both timely and timeless, a sophisticated work of fiction that addresses the anxieties of the present moment as well as the most profound questions of history, art, love and loss.A magnificent novel. EmilyBitto author ofThe StraysandWild Abandon

It takes a phenomenal control of craft, and a keenly honed intelligence, to do what Cunningham has done with this novel: to interrogate politics and art and culture, to take on love and sex and suffering and loyalty, while all the while ensuring that the reader remains buoyant and captivated by narratives that leap across space and time I loved this book. Iabsolutelyloved it. Christos Tsiolkas, author ofThe Slapand 7

Deeply humane, full of humour, and delightfully gossipy about the sex lives of the Bloomsbury Group,This Devastating Feveris innovative in format, chatty in tone and will seduce readers with its simple, direct voice. Books+Publishing

Angry and enthralling, this novel challenges the readers understanding of what a novel might be. The Saturday Paper

bold, cheeky, playfully energetic and utterly distinctive Guardian

This Devastating Fever is thrillingly audacious fiction. Sophie Cunninghams entwined subjects are profound Leonard Woolf and colonialism, the crises of the present day, the challenges of creative work and she writes commandingly and inventively about them all. The result is an extraordinary novel.Michelle de Kretser, author ofQuestions of TravelandScary Monsters

a masterfully told story of intertwined literary lives, old and new The Canberra Times

[Cunninghams] prose crackles and spits with a quintessentially Australian wryness, and soars when depicting the natural world in all of the novels vibrantly drawn locales (Australia, England and Sri Lanka) South China Morning Post

This Devastating Fever left me with a sense of wonder at how nature, art, love and learning from the past can sustain us. Truly wonderful reading that brings Leonard Woolf alive. Good Reading

a deft, original novel that is clearly going to prompt many conversations The Booklist

Reviews

This Devastating Feveris remarkable: athrillingly original, deeply emotional exploration of the complex echoes of history set in the shadow of the looming catastrophe of the future. Sinuous, strange, utterly compelling,it is like no other book youll read this year. -- James Bradley, author of Ghost Species and The Resurrectionist
Brilliant and unlike anything Ive ever read before. It draws on archived letters and diary entries and the edges of what is real and what is imagined are delightfully blurred. Its sharply layered, clever and darkly, dryly hilarious. -- Eliza Henry-Jones, author of Salt and Skin and In the Quiet
A book of big ideas that reads as a page turner. I was thrilled to keep returning to the page. -- Kate Mildenhall, author of Skylarking and The Mother Fault
This Devastating Fever contains the joy and pain and terror of caring deeply for another living thing: whether a loved one whose mind is failing, or cicadas destined to be incinerated in the Black Summer fires. It is also about the need to read carefully, write carefully, and think carefully about the past and how we respond to it, and about what we owe the dead, the living, and the future. * The Conversation *
This Devastating Feverfeels a bit like a blast from the past and in the best way possible. * The Urban List *
I can honestly say this isnt like any book I have ever read before, yet couldnt put down. * RUSSH *
This Devastating Feveris an extraordinary achievement. * Kill Your Darlings *

Author Bio

Sophie Cunningham is the author of eight books including her recent collection of essays, City of Trees and has written both fiction and nonfiction, for adults and children. She has a passion for trees, walking and broader environmental issues, and every day she posts an image of a tree on her Instagram @sophtreeofday. A stalwart of the Australian literary scene, Sophie also works as a writing teacher and was a co-founder of The Stella Prize, former editor of Meanjin, and former chair of the Literature Board of the Australia Council. She lives in Melbourne.