Andrea Goldsmith’s novel interweaves themes of friendship, love, food, music and literature with such insight that the reader becomes immersed in her fictional world from the outset. Her deceptively restrained and elegant style dissects the inner lives of her characters and resonates with a strong sense of place and understanding of the diverse worlds the story inhabits – academic, musical, artistic.
The book’s title The Buried Life could apply equally to any of the three main characters, Adrian, Kezi and Laura. Adrian is a respected academic whose field of specialty is death. His partner, Irene, has just dumped him claiming he’s more involved with death than with life. Drifting in his life, he takes comfort in his friendship with Kezi, a young artist. Kezi, however, has problems of her own, stemming from her rejection by her parents, her fledgling relationship with another woman, Paige, and an undiagnosed illness. When Adrian meets Laura, a woman married to Tony, a self-centred man, they recognise in each other a kindred spirit and they become friends. Friendship develops into something more as Laura recognises that Tony, rather than being the stimulating intellectual she’d believed him to be, is a man of straw.
Goldsmith masterfully explores the inner fears, motivations and redemptive qualities of all three characters, and shows how each of them discovers hitherto unsuspected strengths and greater purpose through challenging and confronting circumstances.
Reviewed by Anne Green
Released March 2025
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Andrea Goldsmith’s acclaimed novels include Gracious Living, Modern Interiors, Facing the Music, Under the Knife, Reunion, The Prosperous Thief (shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award), Invented Lives and The Memory Trap, which was awarded the 2015 Melbourne Prize for Literature.
Her essays have appeared in Meanjin, Australian Book Review, Best Australian Essays, The Monthly, and numerous anthologies.
She lives in Melbourne, Australia.
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