This zeitgeist-capturing novel delves into the characters of six people as their paths intersect and their lives are changed by the actions of others. Like Gibson’s brilliant short story collection, Women I Know, this novel is female- and environment-focused, with an innate poetic sensibility.
Fi is a climate-change keyboard warrior whose viral tweet is the catalyst for the narrative’s development. The initiating tweet is alluded to rather than overtly stated. Gibson seems to be indicating that the tweet is incidental – it’s the culture war it triggers that is more important. Fi rails against the hypocrisy of her boss, Lexi Bostik, who supposedly sided with shock-jock provocateur, James Lambert. Fi’s ‘real’ life occurs online, but there’s an internal dichotomy: while she champions the environment, she likes the comforts of capitalism.
Sidney is a failed poet, whose love affair with Lexi has ended. She eventually finds herself in the house – and bed – of her friend, Tomas. He has a ‘slacker’ mien, working at a factory for a piecemeal wage in order to provide for his daughter, Minnie. Govita is a non-binary artist. Their place in the narrative isn’t as secure or as necessary as the others.
The narrative picks up pace following Lexi, particularly when examining her life with, and love of, Ruth. Lexi is wealthy and is determined to use her money to better the planet. Ruth withdraws from life as Lexi’s world expands. Ruth’s drowning death shatters Lexi.
The final section follows Henry, an angry, anti-Greenie farmer. The novel would have benefited from fully concentrating on the counterintuitive connection between him
and Lexi.
Reviewed by Bob Moore
READ AN INTERVIEW WITH KATERINA GIBSON ABOUT THE TEMPERATURE
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Katerina Gibson (1994) is a writer and bookseller living in Naarm. Her debut collection Women I Know won the 2023 Christina Stead Prize for Fiction, the Steele Rudd Award, and was shortlisted for the Glenda Adams Prize for New Writing.
Her stories have appeared in HEAT, Granta, Overland, The Griffith Review, tMeanjinamong other places.
Her story ‘Fertile Soil’ was the Pacific region winner of the 2021 Commonwealth Short Story Prize, and was later translated into Italian.
Katerina was named SMH 2023 Best Young Australian Novelist. Her debut novel is The Temperature.
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