Theory & Practice

Praise

“Sharp-witted and mesmerizing . . . 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 and boxed review)

“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

“Theory & Practice is a thrillingly original hybrid work that seeks truthful answers to the most difficult questions of the day—questions about the nature of love, art, and desire, about the thorny legacy of colonialism and the unappeasable human yearning for connection.” —Sigrid Nunez, author of The Vulnerables

“Michelle de Krestser, one of the best writers in the English language, has written her most brilliant book yet. It is, in short, a masterpiece.” —Neel Mukherjee, author of Choice and A State of Freedom

“A gem of a book, suffused with the fervent atmosphere of student life, which asks the reader to look again—at literary history, at the idea of the novel, at ourselves.” —Francesca Wade, author of Square Haunting