This is a book of love and loss, focusing on friendships, belonging and maturing into independence. Our unnamed narrator is living in a Redfern share house with three friends. All are on the cusp of turning 30. All have different ethnicities, reflecting the melting-pot communities of cosmopolitan Sydney. The narrator is Indian-Australian. Her housemates are Cambodian (Niki), Palestinian (Sami) and Anglo-Australian (nicknamed Bowerbird).This is a character study with no discernable plot.

The narrator’s well-loved father has recently died. It follows our narrator’s journey through her grief, as she stumbles forward into independent adulthood. She seems caught between an uncertain future and past grief in an unstable present. Memories evoke her enduring love for her father. That she has been left alone at a time of great change is exacerbated by her mother returning to India.

The structure of the book is centred on parts allocated to seasons. Throughout the narrative is a sense of isolation and dislocation. Sydney is geographically huge and tribal, so some groups don’t cross invisible boundaries. The narrator works as a freelance journalist and this is used as a device to take the reader to places and people out of the national consciousness. The narrator and her photographer colleague, Paul, are our guides.

This is also a love song of sorts to Sydney. Our narrator sees it as another friend: someone we know well enough to understand their faults and their chequered past but love it anyway. Despite the darkness, the excellent writing elevates this into a powerful personal journey.

Reviewed by Bob Moore