A new novel by Christos Tsiolkas is cause for great curiosity. His body of work is nothing if not diverse. The release of his latest novel, The In-Between, will be irresistible to those eager to discover where he’s gone this time. While 7½, his last book, was a radical innovation in style and theme. This one holds echoes of The Slap, in that social, emotional and sexual preoccupations of middle-class Melburnians drive the narrative.

While The Slap used an arresting, inciting incident, The In-Between begins quietly. A blind date between two men in their 50s, both scarred by past relationships but willing to risk another go at finding love. Tsiolkas weaves other threads into the story. But it’s the fumbling, tentative attempts of Perry and Ivan to fully understand themselves and each other that’s the backbone of the novel.

As well as exposing their vulnerabilities, Perry and Ivan must come to terms with ageing. They must acknowledge that youth and beauty are no longer theirs to barter with in the gay world.

As we’ve come to expect with Tsiolkas, preoccupations with the body, its smells, functions, mess and relentless physicality, prevail. Passages of explicit homoeroticism are liberally interwoven. Sometimes to the extent that it feels like the author’s decided ‘time for a sex break now’. Tsiolkas’s strengths as a bold and uncompromising chronicler of human frailties are such that his forays into pornography can seem platitudinous.

Thematically this book is a return to familiar Tsiolkas territory of questionable middle-class values. The corrosive effects of capitalist society and the self-serving nature of political ideologies. But to a large extent the dinner table debates and conversational cut and thrust don’t so much illuminate character as foreground ideas that aren’t novel enough to warrant the space they’re given.

While not breaking new ground novelistically, the book raises fundamental questions about what it means to love another person, to really know ourselves and to risk love again after devastating loss. As such it’s a moving and compelling read.

Reviewed by Anne Green

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Christos Tsiolkas is the author of five novels. Loaded, was made into the feature film Head-On. The Jesus Man and Dead Europe, won the 2006 Age Fiction Prize and the 2006 Melbourne Best Writing Award. He won Overall Best Book in the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize 2009, was shortlisted for the 2009 Miles Franklin Literary Award, longlisted for the 2010 Man Booker Prize and won the Australian Literary Society Gold Medal for his novel, The Slap. The book was also announced as the 2009 Australian Booksellers Association and Australian Book Industry Awards Books of the Year. He is also a playwright, essayist and screen writer.

He lives in Melbourne.

Visit Christos Tsiolkas’ website