One of the most anticipated literary releases of the year, this gripping novel changes the game on what fiction can be and do

It’s 1986, and ‘beautiful, radical ideas’ are in the air. A young woman arrives in Melbourne to research the novels of Virginia Woolf. In bohemian St Kilda she meets artists, activists, students—and Kit. He claims to be in a ‘deconstructed’ relationship, and they become lovers. Meanwhile, her work on the Woolfmother falls into disarray.

Theory & Practice is a mesmerising account of desire and jealousy, truth and shame. It makes and unmakes fiction as we read, expanding our notion of what a novel can contain.

Michelle de Kretser, one of Australia’s most celebrated writers, bends fiction, essay and memoir into exhilarating new shapes to uncover what happens when life smashes through the boundaries of art.

Details

ISBN13: 9781923058149
Format: Paperback / softback
Number of Pages: 192
Edition:
Publication Date:
Publisher: Text Publishing
Publication City, Country: Melbourne, Australia
Dimensions (cm): 23.4(H)x15.3(L)
Weight (gm):

Author Biography

Michelle de Kretser was born in Sri Lanka. She lives in Warrane/Sydney on unceded Gadigal land. An honorary associate of the English Department at the University of Sydney, she has won several awards for her fiction. Theory & Practice is her seventh novel.

Reviews

‘Theory & Practice blazes with intelligence, passion and wit. I devoured it, greedily, in a single glorious sitting.’ * Sarah Waters, bestselling author of The Fingersmith *
‘Michelle de Kretser is a genius—one of the best writers working today. She is startlingly, uncannily good at naming and facing what is most difficult and precious about our lives. Theory & Practice is a wonder, a brilliant book that reinvents itself again and again, stretching the boundaries of the novel to show the ways in which ideas and ideals are folded into our days, as well as the times when our choices fail to meet them. There’s no writer I’d rather read.’ * V.V. Ganeshananthan, author of Women's Prize for Fiction and Carol Shields Prize award-winning Brotherless Night *
‘In the midst of a late coming-of-age plot effervescent with romantic and intellectual misadventure, de Kretser considers memory—how we enshrine our cultural heroes and how we tell ourselves the stories of our own lives—with absolute rigor and perfect clarity. Structurally innovative and totally absorbing, this is a book that enlivens the reader to every kind of possibility. I savored every word.’ * Jennifer Croft, author of The Extinction of Irena Rey *

‘Michelle de Kretser, one of the best writers in the English language, has written her most brilliant book yet. It is, in short, a masterpiece.’

* Neel Mukherjee *
‘One of the living masters of the art of fiction.’ * Max Porter *
'Thrillingly original.’ * Sigrid Nunez, author of The Vulnerables *

‘Sharp-witted and mesmerising…The narrator’s clever political insights and beautiful depictions of art and literature offer readers a view into a captivating mind. De Kretser is at the top of her game.’

* Publishers Weekly (starred review) *
‘4.5 stars. An innovation blend of fiction, memoir and non-fiction…One of the characters says at one stage, “I’m going to focus on making art that doesn’t look like art”, which is what de Kretser has successfully achieved. Her spare, deceptively ingenuous prose works to convey the character’s inner world of conflicting ideologies, cultural contradictions and longing, with authority.’ * Good Reading *
‘Prepare to have your preconceived notions of what a novel can be shattered as you delve into this extraordinary work.’ * Conscious Living Magazine *
‘Brilliant and mesmerising.’ * Gleaner *
‘…Intensely moving…’ * Declan Fry, ABC Arts *
‘I found it utterly engaging…I enjoyed it immensely.’ * Kate Evan, ABC RN The Bookshelf *
‘This strange little book is probably the best thing to be published in 2024. It refutes the cliches of the novel, memoir, and essay by somehow being all three at once. It’s funny, barefaced, human, supremely smart, and it grips the reader with a confidence in prose writing that is unparalleled. You’ll find something to marvel at on every page. Read and reread. I am obsessed.’ * Ben’s pick of 2024, Better Read Than Dead *
‘Theory & Practice functions as a potent reminder that the purpose of art is not always distinct from the purpose of life: generating imperfect pathways towards empathy. Through practical demonstration, de Kretser shows exactly what the novel can do. Only a novelist of her calibre could have written it.’ * Eda Gunaydin, Conversation *
‘In connecting betrayals of trust in this loose-leafed, inclusive and utterly absorbing novel, de Kretser finds a fresh form and language for shameless witness.’ * Saturday Paper *
‘Michelle de Kretser has deployed fiction, essay, and memoir to powerful effect, showing without telling the “messy gap” and the “breakdowns” between theory and practice.’ * Australian Book Review *
‘There is a sense that we must approach de Kretser as the narrator herself approaches Woolf, by pushing our way through the obstacles she presents—knocking through the walls of ambiguity that stand between theory and practice and its elusive meaning—and adapt the spaces thereby created to our own “needs” as readers. To somehow—just as the narrator writes back to Woolf—“write back”, metaphorically at least, to de Kretser herself.’ * Australian *
‘In this ambitious and dazzling work, de Kretser illuminates the ways in which uncomfortable truths of class, race, privilege, desire and shame reside in the gap between theory and practice.’ * Big Issue *
‘A very intriguing novel…I definitely recommend it.’ * RNZ: Nine to Noon *
‘An essential novel for anyone interested in the expansive possibilities of the literary form.’ * Alison Huber, Readings Monthly *
‘You can feel the pangs of female jealousy, the strain of mother-daughter relationships and the spark of young love. Perfect for a summer read, but also with a timeless appeal.’ * Good Weekend *
‘Theory & Practice takes seriously what it means to love: not only people, but ideas too. She shows how love’s ugliest emotions—jealousy, shame, disappointment, betrayal—are often embedded alongside the tricky thinking that breaks us down and shapes us, allowing us to glimpse other stories beneath the ones we inherit.’ * Ruth McHugh-Dillon, Meanjin *
‘A really delightful and clever and thoughtful book.’ * David Gaunt, ABC Sydney *
‘De Kretser perceptively evokes how maternal figures, both birthright and adoptive, maintain a hold on us, despite our attempts to distance ourselves…A form-melding book contending with colonialism, the disharmony that can arise between our purported ideals and how we live, the depths of jealousy and shame, and motherhood and the maternal figures who shape us…An inquiry into what fiction can look like and what it can achieve.’ * Jack Callil, Guardian *
‘A perfectly observed meditation…Traverses the schisms of torn lovers, flawed heroes, imploding institutions, ignored phone calls from anxious mothers, clashing cultures, galvanising friendships, warm beds, cold sharehouses, theory and practice. And through it all, a yearning for life and experience that drives the young narrator on.’ * InReview, Best Books of 2024 *
‘In Theory & Practice, Michelle de Kretser’s familiar narrative dexterity and piercing moral sensibility are overlaid on a new schema which threads non-fiction and memoir elements through fiction. The subtle brilliance of the underlying conceit makes this one of her best novels, and probably the bravest.’ * Michael Winkler *
‘Michelle de Krester’s Theory & Practice hit all my sweet spots…’ * Zora Simic *
‘An understated masterpiece, [Michelle de Kretser’s] best novel to date.’ * Spectrum, Best Books of 2024 *
‘[Michelle] de Kretser is at her formidable best in this exhilarating blend of memoir, fiction and essay…[A] brief, crystal-clear novel.’ * Michael Williams, Qantas Magazine *
‘[T]he novel’s spare, fragmented structure elegantly incorporates its contradictory chorus of voices and ideas, which combine to suggest complex truths.’ * Age *
‘A genre-defying novel.’ * Sydney Morning Herald *
‘A brilliant account of what it means to be a feminist and wrestling with universal emotions that cannot be denied. It’s a slim book, something you can finish in one glorious and insightful sitting.’ * Women’s Agenda *
‘A thought-provoking narrative on desire, shame and moral complexities.’ * Harper’s Bazaar *
‘That feeling when a book absolutely has you…You read it up until the point where your eyes have drooped…and you want to keep going. That’s the power this book has over me. It’s a ripper.’ * Clare Wright *
‘Michelle de Kretser’s new novel Theory & Practice is her briefest, yet it contains whole constellations of thought and feeling. Is it biographical fiction, or fictionalised biography? It doesn’t matter. A condensed marvel of a novel.’ * Geordie Williamson, Best Books of 2024, Australian *
‘Any new de Kretser novel is a huge event because I know it will be utterly brilliant: deft, inclusive, funny and moving, like all her books.’ * Fiona McFarlane, author of Highway 13, Australian Women’s Weekly *
‘Michelle de Kretser is to my mind one of the finest writers alive and Theory & Practice a lightning strike of a book.’ * Ali Smith *
‘I loved it…raw, funny, truthful, youthful’ * Tessa Hadley *
‘Startlingly intelligent and stylish.’ * Jasmine Vojdani, New York Magazine *
‘A brilliantly auto fictive knot, composed of the shifting intensities and treacheries of young love, of complex inheritances both literary and maternal, of overwhelming jealousies and dark shivers of shame…In her refusal to write a novel that reads like a novel, de Kretser instead gifts her reader a sharp examination of the complex pleasures and costs of living.’ * 2025 Stella Prize Judges *
‘Theory & Practice is sly, spiky, and brilliant: an intellectual coming-of-age story that accounts for all that can’t be learned in the academy—or in books…[It] flits confidently between modes: memoir and novel, personal and political, fact and fiction. Essayistic asides commingle with tender memories; heady emotions intrude on serious philosophising. The aim, the narrator says, is to capture a sense of “formlessness and mess”—in other words, real life.’ * Atlantic *
‘A stunning book…Instructive, a pleasure to read the sentences on the page.’ * ABC RN: The Bookshelf *
‘This is a novel that is intelligent, funny and complicated — and worth reading more than once.’ * Kate Evans, ABC *