Feast

by Emily O'Grady

A compelling novel of three women and their dark secrets from the award-winning author of The Yellow House.

Longlisted for the 2024 Stella Prize


Three women. Three secrets. One weekend.

Alison is an actress who no longer acts, Patrick a musician past his prime. The eccentric couple live an isolated, debauched existence in an old manor house in Scotland, a few miles outside their village. That is, until Patrick's teenage daughter, Neve, flees Australia to spend a year abroad with her doting, if unreliable, father, and the stepmother she barely knows.

On the weekend of Neve's eighteenth birthday, her father insists on a special feast to mark her coming of age. Despite Neve's objections, her mother Shannon arrives in Scotland to join the celebrations. What none of them know is that Shannon has arrived with a hidden agenda that has the potential to shatter the delicate façade of the loving, if dysfunctional, family.

Feast is the story of three women connected beyond blood, and what happens when their darkest secrets are hauled into the light.

'Complicated and unsettling, nothing is as it seems. Filled with exquisitely drawn characters and powerful storytelling,Feastis a superb read. You will not want to put this book down.' Mirandi Riwoe, author of Stone Sky Gold Mountain

Praise for The Yellow House:
'A dark, unsettling debut with chilling momentum…' The Sydney Morning Herald

'An astounding debut.' – Brisbane News

'O'Grady is a talented storyteller; it's her narrative skills that make this grim tome so compelling.' – Australian Book Review

'Creepy and atmospheric…It's a measure of the skill of the writing that this uncomfortable, often ugly tale is such an immersive and evocative story, with a sense of horror that is never far from the surface.' – Herald Sun

'A tautly written thriller.' – The Big Issue

'It's not an easy thing to nail the voice of a child in a way that's both authentic and alluring, but O'Grady does just that from the get-go.' – Debbish

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary, Adult, Family, Australia, Audiobook, Literary Fiction

304 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 30, 2023

About the author

Emily O'Grady was born in 1991 in Brisbane. Her fiction and poetry have appeared in, or are forthcoming in Review of Australian Fiction, Westerly, Australian Poetry Journal, The Lifted Brow, Kill Your Darlings, The Big Issue Fiction Edition and Award Winning Australian Writing. In 2012 she won the QUT Undergraduate Writing Prize, and in 2013 she won the QUT Postgraduate Writing Prize. In 2017 she placed second in the Rachel Funari Prize for Fiction, was shortlisted for the Queensland Premiers Young Publishers and Writers Award, and was longlisted for the Elizabeth Jolley Prize for Fiction. She co-edits Stilts Journal, and is currently completing a PhD in Creative Writing at Queensland University of Technology, where she also works as a Sessional Academic.

Her 2018 novel The Yellow House won the 2018 Australian/Vogel's Literary Award

Reviews

[Nat K · Rating 3 out of 5]

***Longlisted for the 2024 Stella Prize***

***04.April.2024 Shortlisted for the 2024 Stella Prize***

”The menu’s confirmed with the caterers for the party, but we’ll want champagne as well as wine, obviously. A proper feast.”

Emily O'Grady certainly has a knack for writing about dysfunctional families. Just like in her book The Yellow House the characters in this book aren't particularly likeable, and yet you can’t help but have more than a passing interest in them. Like overhearing an awkward conversation in a coffee shop. You don’t mean to listen in, but you do.

Each of our characters has an agenda and a secret to hide. Alison and Patrick are ensconced in their eccentric lifestyle in a rambling old castle-like house in a remote village outside of Edinburgh. She’s an actress best known for playing bizarre roles, he’s a musician of some renown. However both are, to put it crudely, past their use by date. Better known for what they have created rather than for what they will despite both working on current projects. Though only in their late forties, life and culture has moved on without them.

To disrupt their routine of late nights and later mornings, Patrick’s daughter Neve, from his first marriage arrives. Neve has decided to leave the sun and brightness of her Aussie home to spend her gap year before starting uni to reconnect with her absent father. Her visit coinciding with her eighteenth birthday, for which of course, there has to be a Feast. Her mother Shannon will also join them, flying out from Oz for the weekend to spend with her daughter for this special birthday.

The title is interesting, as to me it not only represents the dinner for Neve to celebrate impending adulthood, but also the ways in which the various characters feast on each other's emotions. Devouring them little by little. Those tiny paranoias. Barbed words and intended slights which are meant to hurt. The dynamics of the relationships are curious and ever changing, like being caught in a rip. You don’t know quite where you will end up.

We really get inside the heads of Alison, Neve and Shannon, and what we see isn’t always pretty. Alternate chapters are devoted to each of them.

This is quite a dark read, with an undercurrent of menace, which is also the tone that The Yellow House had. Emily O’Grady certainly doesn’t paint a pretty picture of families, but instead shows the rawness of each individual somehow forming a family unit, that may or may not work.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/edit...

For me there were plenty of uncomfortable scenes, the first one at the very start where a rabbit was caught in a trap. To say the writing is visceral is an understatement. There’s also the suggestion of elder abuse and possible child grooming through a relationship that years later appears to have been non consensual.

But that’s where the writing gets interesting. And murky. As it depends on which character's side of the story you are reading. As we all know, there’s three sides to every story. Your side, my side, and the truth. Which fits somewhere in between.

Have a listen to where Emily O’Grady talks about how this novel is about our capacity to be most cruel to those we love most and what her Stella Prize nomination means to her:
https://stella.org.au/emily-ogrady-fe...

I’d say this will definitely make it to the Stella Prize shortlist. I hope it does.

Shout out to Randwick City Library for having this available. Such a great library to have so many current titles ready and waiting to be read.

Book 2 of my Stella Prize 2024 reading longlist.

[Janelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

A strangely compelling read about really horrible people. It’s well written but ultimately doesn’t really go anywhere. I was well into this book before I realised that I had read this author before (The Yellow House) and really disliked it. Hopefully I’ll remember next time not to pick up this author.

[Neale · Rating 4 out of 5]

Longlisted for the 2024 Stella.

I have not read “The Yellow House” but I have heard of it being an uncomfortable read. Well this novel leaves you feeling very uncomfortable as well.

Allison is forty-eight years old and pregnant for the first time. Up until this point in her life she had assumed she must be sterile. She is not going to keep the baby.

Allison and Patrick live in a small village north of Edinburgh. For the past two months Patrick’s daughter, Neve, has been living with them after finishing high school in Australia.
The story starts on the eve of Neve’s eighteenth birthday and her mother, Shannon, is flying in from Sydney to celebrate with them.

Allison’s life as an actress was interrupted when she spent time with her dying mother. Allison surprised herself by deciding to not move back to Australia when her mother died. She shelved the plans of selling her mother’s house and moved in instead. Patrick, who used to be in a band and now writes musical scores for movies moved in as well. They are both happy and content with the isolation and slow pace of the small town.

Patrick – “We’re happy how we are, aren’t we? You a lady of leisure, me slowly rotting away.”

However, Allison has hidden her feelings that she is not quite comfortable with Neve living with them. This may be the reason she has taken a job again after all this time.

For me this is very much a novel about family dynamics and relationships. Especially when there are changes. Personality clashes and disagreements. The relationship between Neve and Allison is tense and strained.

With the change of chapters there is also the change in perspective. Allison and Neve are the two major characters and living inside their heads is dark and uncomfortable indeed. Both characters have feelings of self-importance and self-loathing. And both characters have disturbing, sometimes violent thoughts. Dark secrets eat away at their core like a worm in an apple.

The story seems to be just that of a mother coming over to celebrate her daughter’s eighteenth birthday party with her father and new partner. However, the whole time you are reading there is this feeling of distress, an unpleasant feeling that feels like everything could implode at any moment. The characters, especially Allison and Neve are deep and complex, and very DISTURBING!!!!!

O’grady is a gifted writer, almost too descriptive at times, but I do like her style.

[Vivian · Rating 3 out of 5]

A rather disturbing read about an abrasive and totally insensitive character, Allison, and her equally unlikeable volatile partner Patrick. Allison is blunt, mean and totally unlikeable. She is strangely enamored with Patrick’s ex wife but quite horrid to Patrick’s daughter Neve.

The plot meanders along but never really reveals any resolution of the multiple plot threads and character motivations. Dark and simmering with tension but somehow unsatisfying.

[Deborah (debbishdotcom) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Feast reminded me of the movie (and play) Don's Party, in which election-night drama unfolds in one evening. And I know I've read other books - including Michelle Prak's The Rush recently that have been similar. The narrative itself spans just a couple of days. We only dip into the past through memories, so there's a sense what's unfolding is almost taking place in real time with we readers as voyeurs.

The characters O'Grady offers us are complex. She peels back layers but I was left wanting more.

This is paced well with personal demons and unspoken secrets all eventually revealed - if not interrogated.

Although disappointed at the lack of redemptive arc, I still enjoyed this weighty read. O'Grady is an excellent storyteller and her writing a beautiful balance of light and shade. 
Read my review here: https://www.debbish.com/books-literat...

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is something so beautiful and yet so disgusting about the way that Emily O'Grady writes. The Yellow House was one of the most amazing and yet uncomfortable and unsettling novels I've ever read and Feast, for me, continues the trend. Set over the course of just a few days, Feast dips in and out of present day and memory and describes the days leading up to 18th birthday party of Neve (one of the three female narrators). The events of the book are reasonably innocuous - preparing for the party, tidying the house, playing badminton, picking flowers, visiting neighbours, but there is a pervading sense of menace and unease throughout the book as the secrets these three women keep slowly eat away at them. The ending of the book feels like a slap in the face that you were waiting for, but didn't know when it would come. I listened to the audiobook and would definitely recommend!

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Set in Scotland over a period of a few days, and culminating in an 18th birthday party, this is the story of three women, Shannon (the first partner), Neve (the daughter) and Alison (the second partner) as told through their alternating points of view. As their relationships with each other and musician Patrick (husband and father) are explored, their dark secrets are gradually revealed.

An isolated Scottish mansion and a somewhat creepy young neighbour add to the the dark brooding sense of menace that underpins this novel as it explores this somewhat dysfunctional extended family, their relationships, desires and actions, both past and present.

I really admired O'Grady's first novel 'The Yellow House' (winner of the Vogel) and this latest offering was also a great read that completely held my attention from the very first page. This is a clever, very well written novel and I can't what for the author's next offering.

[Theresa Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Feast was, at the risk of sounding cliche, a feast for the senses. Similar to Sarah Schmidt, Emily O’Grady is what I like to call a sensory writer, in that, she demands her readers utilise all of their senses whilst reading her work. Textures, tastes, and smells abound in her prose, sometimes gloriously so, but more often than not, with an element of gore. It’s immersive literary fiction and I am a huge fan of it.

The characters in Feast are complex and fractured, hidden depths within each of them, and not just the three women who narrate the story. Patrick has much to hide and whilst on the surface seems a compliant pushover with regards to Alison’s demands and whims, there is a passive aggressive undercurrent between them and an unsettling feeling that Patrick does not love Alison quite as much as she thinks he does. And Elixir, the creepy teenager from next door who has attached himself to Neve yet appears to have an unhealthy obsession with Alison; the hidden depths there certainly surprised me.

The story unfolds over a weekend and centres around a feast that is planned for the 18th birthday of Patrick’s daughter, Neve. The party is small, just Neve, Patrick, Alison, Elixir – attending as Neve’s only friend, and Shannon, Neve’s mother who is flying to Scotland from Australia just for the weekend. Shannon’s attendance is an extravagance I had trouble reconciling, her time spent flying there and back exceeding the time spent in Scotland. Alison’s behaviour towards Shannon is bizarre given the fact that Shannon is Patrick’s not quite yet ex-wife; pandering and simpering, almost as though she has a crush on her, and at several points, Alison invades Shannon’s personal space inappropriately. Shannon’s attendance for the weekend is not as straightforward as a mother wanting to spend time with her daughter on the occasion of her 18th birthday though. The truth behind her motivations once revealed were more personal, more about a reckoning, one that Patrick was instinctively fearful of – as he well should have.

Alison is a rather odd woman, naturally cruel and kind of revolting in many ways – there was a crude grossness to her that extended to everything: housekeeping, personal hygiene, slovenly habits. Something exists between her and her neighbour, Elixir’s father, yet we aren’t informed of what until almost the end of the story. It was something I did not see coming and was entirely unsettling in many ways. I had been beginning to feel sorry for her, but the reveal had the effect of an emotional whiplash. At the conclusion of the story, you are left with the feeling that Alison and Patrick are perfect for each other, and that Neve should move on and get away from them while she can, before she becomes tainted by their selfish ways and rather subjective morals.

Feast is a compelling read, addictive and immersive. Emily O’Grady impressed me with her debut The Yellow House and she continues to maintain this with Feast. I’m really looking forward to seeing what she comes up with next.

Thanks to the publisher for the review copy.

[Hayley · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a nicely done, psychological, character-based novel.

I picked this up because it was on the Stella Prize Long-list (then it made it to the Shortlist as well, so bravo) and because the premise intrigued me. And then the less-positive reader reviews on Goodreads sold it to me even further!

I am pleased this type of writing is being produced here in Australia. I am fast becoming an avid follower of the Stella Prize, given the interesting calibre of work it has been leading me to this year.

[Jillwilson · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is an actual feast in this novel but it doesn’t feel very much like one. Alison is a well-known actress partnered with Patrick who has some fame as a musician. Both are in their late 40s. When the novel begins, they are living in semi-retirement in rural Scotland and hosting a long visit from Patrick’s 17 year-old daughter Neve. Further tension is introduced with the visit of Shannon. Neve’s mother and Patrick’s ex. It allows for some deep secrets and long-held resentments to emerge.
The opening scene features Alison discovering a rabbit caught in a trap. Her first reaction is to push down on its neck until it snaps. She stands, feeling “the illogical ache of homesickness, of feeling far from where she is safe”, and carries its corpse back to their dilapidated manor house. It’s a good metaphor for the rest of the novel – people are trapped in worlds of their own, they are disconnected from each other and most interactions are either painful, passive-aggressive or isolating.

Each section is told from the perspective of one of the three main female characters, Neve, Alison and Shannon, in quite large chunks of text. Some events are seen through the eyes of at least two characters – and their perspectives are quite different. It means that as a reader, you never quite trust anything that you are being told. It is quite difficult to feel much sympathy for some of the characters but I quite liked how they were portrayed. “As the occasion looms, Alison’s grief is gradually revealed as something darker and more complex. So, too, is Patrick’s relationship with Shannon.” (https://www.smh.com.au/culture/books/...)

What O’Grady is good at is creating compelling characters who are struggling with stuff. I felt enmeshed in the claustrophobic world of this remote rural place. The visceral nature of the body is also something that crops up again and again. Patrick has the bare legs of a flamingo, and, when meeting Shannon at the airport, a “festive prickle, the smell of him hallucinogenic”. Alison’s body is large, unwieldy, unreliable. She wears a “stumpy braid”. Her body continually betrays her. The aging process is a dark thread running through the novel.

I agreed with this view of the novel: “Like Christos Tsiolkas in The Slap, O’Grady exposes the innate capacity for violence, cruelty and neglect which all her characters share, but she refuses to make them only this, showing also their capacity to create life and joy, to nurture and to love.” (https://www.theguardian.com/books/202...)

[Kirsten · Rating 4 out of 5]

This meandered through the middle but I didn’t mind as the writing was so evocative and beautiful.

(Also Patrick gave off big Nick Cave vibes)

[Julie Chamaa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Emily O’Grady is an interesting writer. Her ability with dialogue is impressive and the character development sophisticated. The characters in Feast though are mostly unpleasant, ranging from a self-important, unreliable male protagonist Patrick and the three women who are connected to him: his daughter Neve, ex-wife Shannon, and current partner Alison. These women are surly and calculating, servile and secretive, sarcastic and eccentric respectively. The pages are thickly reinforced with spite and nastiness. These characters are unforgiving and all have something from their past that they withhold and which they wield with menace.

O’Grady seems to relish intricate detailing in her writing and is adept at describing uncommon pursuits like the skinning and gutting of a rabbit but the segment which focused on miscarriage was quite sickening in its description.

Nicely executed is the sense of place: from the cold, ancient manor house in Scotland where the feast takes place to the bright sunlight of Australia, where each of the main characters either originate or hold some affinity.

This is a dark, claustrophobic novel from a
new Australian author to watch.

3.5 stars scaled upwards.

[Tundra · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a strange dark tale and perhaps one of the saddest most miserable birthday parties I’ve ever read in a book - poor Neave. The characters in this book are brilliantly depicted but be warned - they all exhibit “glass half empty” feelings- it is not a happy story. Feast does do a great job of exploring how behaviour is influenced by earlier relationships and events and how secrets can eat you from within.

[Cheyenne · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this one quickly and wanted to put it down many times but I was hopeful. Alison and Patrick are awful people, hurting those around them with no care and no redemption at the end. They really are made for each other. Also the animal abuse and the amount of animals they eat makes me sick.

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm going to keep my 2024 Stella Prize reviews brief, otherwise I simply won't get through them before the shortlist is announced on April 4.

First up is Feast by Emily O'Grady. I ripped through it over my weekend in Adelaide. Thoughts:

Thoroughly enjoyed the gothic tone. O'Grady embeds it in all sorts of ways from the damp, drafty house and the rabbit hunting to reclusive characters and abandoned zoos - it's all very dark.
The slow reveal of themes. I was actually surprised by some of them ("Oh! I didn't see that coming!")
The lush writing - O'Grady engages all the senses.

The small knot of poultry swims in a pillar-box red sauce, vibrant puddles of green oil polka-dotted over the vast white plate, some sort of grey ash sprinkled over everything. It looks like a crime scene, like crass pop art. Alison loads a fork. The meat sits in her mouth, wet and solid as clay.

...Eleanor and the twins, babies still, soft as finger buns.

Complex (and essentially unlikeable) characters - make for such fun compelling reading.

When Patrick insisted they go out for decadent meals, more often than not - depending on her mood and how unwieldy she was feeling - she would go to the bathroom afterwards to heave it all out of her. She didn't even feel shame. Didn't even try to hide it. It felt good at the time, and now she considers it a period of personal growth, purging to rebalance the equilibrium of her humours, like an Elizabethan monk, a stoic.

I feel a little cranky about the cover - totally misrepresents this book.

Will it win? Maybe. Hope that fussy cover doesn't distract from the dark guts of this book.

4/5

[Deb Chapman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent overall and delightful writing. The characters weren’t exactly appealing but the story was intriguing and well told. I liked the device of different voices, but which also moved the story along and deepened it. It was Rachel cusk-ish, but easier to read! Back blurb says ‘complicated and unsettling’ which is spot on I think.

[Jaclyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I sometimes read a novel and think of all the characters you could conjure, you chose to bring these ones to life on the page. Equally, of all the stories you could tell, this was the one you chose to agonise over for years. Good prose always pushes these thoughts away. A novel of characters with dark secrets that get slowly revealed is not uncommon. Here the secrets are particularly awful, as are the characters and the ways they behave. I found it all pretty bleak and depressing and ultimately I wondered what the point of it all was. Humans are vile. This was not a question of likability, I prefer unlikable characters. It was more a matter of me thinking about the reasons you would ask a reader to spend this much time with these people. I wish I saw in the prose what the Stella prize judges did as that would certainly have elevated my reading experience. So I put this down to an incompatibility between a writer and a reader.

[Ann Graham · Rating 2 out of 5]

Strange story, strange characters, not relatable in any way. I’m not sure what the point of the story is.

[Natasha (jouljet) · Rating 4 out of 5]

A story surrounding a man who wants his cake, and always eats it too - who reels when the repercussions of his thoughtless and self-centred behaviour finally challenge his world. The impact his actions have on the three women around him erupt across the weekend of his daughter's eighteen birthday. Told from the trio of perspectives of these fiercely independent, intelligent, complex, women - his current partner, his ex and their daughter - these three women have been living with the emotional carnage of the actions of this self-absorbed, selfish man.

Alison is an actress, who hasn't left her home for a very long time. Initially moving back to care for her dying mother, her grief and guilt has manifested into a claustrophobic way. She is harbouring a secret she at first has plans to deal with swiftly, until she suddenly changes her mind as her home is filled with Patrick's family.

Neve has arrived at Alison and Patrick's place, supposedly on a gap year, living with her father for the first time since she was small. Working through the estranged feelings, and trying to figure out what's next for her, she finds herself wanting to feel at home here, more and more.

Shannon flies in for the weekend of Neve's birthday, falling into old patterns, and finding herself navigating her relationship with her husband's new partner, his usual ways, and jetlag. She has a lifetime of unsettling pain she needs to address, to allow her to finally move on.

A complex swirl of events, with multilayered emotional baggage all just under the surface. History, old wounds, neglected conversations, abandoned hurts, all bubble at the surface of this family gathering for a birthday celebration.

A emotive and tense read, compelling and complex, leaving a lingering rumination on so many of the issues brought to the surface here in these pages.

[Shayla Morgansen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I flew through this book. Emily O'Grady has a gripping writing style, an ability to take your hand with words and lead you through a storyscape that is not very nice, introduce you to awful people you won't like, and still have you trailing along listening desperately to every matter-of-fact, uncomfortable observation she makes. In other reviews I see this book described as unsettling, which was also the case for me. It's not my usual genre, completely lacking in spaceships, ghosts or magical powers, but the uneasy vibe of the storytelling and the almost haunted house setting had me feeling like any of those elements could make an appearance at any point. At times visceral, at others objectively detached, O'Grady's skilful writing is at all times uncomfortablely intimate, like we are standing too close to the heartless Alison, the directionless Neve or the repressed Shannon and unable to look away from the depravities they've each wrought. I expect this book will stay with me a long time.

[Kate Mathieson · Rating 4 out of 5]

As literary fiction often is, everything happens and nothing happens and I love that.

Here we have a tale of three women each holding a different secret, each self absorbed and unlikable in many ways.

From the review I've read a common theme seems to be that nothing really much happens, there's no character arc, and no resolution of any kind.

I thought about this a lot after I finished the book, as this didn't surprise or bother me. The fact that this novel isn't tied up with a nice neat bow at the end, and the unlikeability of these characters, remains the same at the end as at the beginning, to me is both fascinating and real.

The descriptions were immaculate, the smells grotesque (the description of killing and skinning a bunny had me skimming those words very fast). It was gothic in nature and I truly felt I was living in a damp stone house in the middle of Scotland with these people.

[Georgia Mckevitt · Rating 4 out of 5]

A read I couldn’t put down!
O’Grady leans into the grotesque in an uncomfortably beautiful way. Feast highlights a dysfunctional family unit with each member twisted in their own way. There was a subtle building of tension which hooked me and I appreciate the way she left the reader with the necessary pieces of information to put together key moments from the past while also offering them the opportunity to create their own future for the characters.
Patrick and Alison certainly deserve each other.

[Melanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I kept waiting for some great mystery reveal but this was quite predictable. None of the characters are particularly likeable, which is fine, but they also didn't seem to develop over time.

[alice kelly · Rating 2 out of 5]

i have a lot of thoughts about this book… o’grady’s actual writing - in terms of her ability to string words together in an intriguing, descriptive way - is very strong. however, her writing of plot and characters fell extremely flat for me, the former more so.

the plot! i really thought it was going somewhere and at times i didn’t want to put this book down, but it really didn’t build to anything substantial. the storyline had the potential to be thrilling but it would then fizzle out or instead take an underwhelming turn. weirdly enough, this book has inspired my creative brain but only because i want to rewrite so many parts of the plot.

most of the characters were unlikable; though i assume that’s the point, i still found they lacked many - if any - redeeming qualities which resulted in me not really caring about what happened to any of them with the exception of shannon. i felt myself wondering about her perspective the most, particularly towards the disappointing ending of the story. an abrupt finish made it feel like o’grady was rushing to meet a deadline - i understand wanting to contain the story to the events of a single weekend but i’m really not sure why it had to end the way it did.

an overall frustrating book; o’grady’s potential seems greater than the writing on show here.

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Such an unpleasant experience to spend time with these people, but so expertly written. A great book.

[Stefe · Rating 2 out of 5]

Strange dark story that went nowhere with most of the characters totally self absorbed and unlikeable.

[Sandra · Rating 2 out of 5]

'Her irritation is as gentle as a gland swelling, retreating. She hasn’t felt real anger in years.'

[Cass Moriarty · Rating 5 out of 5]

I opened Feast (Allen and Unwin 2023), the second novel by author Emily O’Grady, after the launch, expecting to read a few pages and return to it later, but I couldn’t put it down. It is exactly the kind of reflective, quiet, meditative, introspective, literary novel I love, with a deliciously creeping sense of menace and disquiet. Relationships, family dynamics, secrets, hidden desires, dysfunction – Feast has it all.

Feast centres on the preparations for Neve’s 18th birthday, a quiet affair where the young Australian woman has come to live for a year with her father, Patrick, in a suitably eerie and hauntingly unsettling Scottish mansion. Patrick is a once famous and still recognised musician with plenty of money and his partner Alison is an actress past her prime. The house belonged to Alison’s mother, Frances, who lived upstairs until she passed away relatively recently. Neve’s mother, Shannon, arrives from Australia for the celebration and there are various other characters, including Elixir (and yes, he did change his birth name), a teenager neighbour who lives with his father Gareth.

One of the striking aspects of this book is that each section is told from the perspective of one of the three main female characters, Neve, Alison and Shannon, in quite large chunks of text, so that for example, the story begins from Alison’s point of view and the reader is allowed a complex and introspective look at the situation and story from her perspective. Then when the POV shifts to Neve, two things become apparent: firstly, some events are retold in Neve’s voice and so are necessarily slightly different than how Alison has represented them, and secondly, the reader realises that not everything that Alison has referred to historically may be true. It’s not exactly an unreliable narrator scenario, but more that everyone has their own truth, everyone hides things or chooses not to reveal certain actions or motivations, and characters unleash their own feelings about others (even if only in their thoughts/heads but not spoken aloud). The same happens once Shannon narrates: we get a third perspective, often at odds with what we’ve come to believe as true from the voices of Alison and Neve. This nuanced and complicated telling of story is well-controlled, full of tension and conflict, mildly discombobulating and very interesting, confirming what we all know, that there is never one truth but many versions from different perspectives.

The house is evocative, atmospheric and ghostly, with the spectre of Frances metaphorically roaming the rooms. Her absence is a haunting presence. The depiction of landscape and environment is detailed, vivid and immersive. Feast voices dark and disturbing thoughts and actions that are usually kept hidden; each character says, does or thinks monstrous things that are uncomfortable to read about, strange and ugly, and yet completely compelling. The ending is unexpected in many ways, but then the whole story is full of small, unexpected moments, weird surprises, unsettling details that make the reader stop and think.

There is a subtle darkness to this book that reveals itself to the reader gradually, in tiny increments, as actions and thoughts are uncovered. We are lulled into thinking we know the characters a certain way and then disabused of that notion with small but crucial details.

O’Grady’s writing is controlled and lyrical. Feast will make you question your own innermost fears, desires and secret thoughts. A beautiful book.

[Dani Ringrose · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wasn't sure what to expect from this novel, as I felt like it could've been one of those blurbs that steered me in the wrong direction regarding my expectations. Initially slow-burning, it becomes incredibly compelling reading around the halfway mark. There's no giant reveal, no sudden catastrophe, no plot twist that makes this so - it's like swimming in a rip, and discovering you're being pulled along. And it's not like it's a page-turning thriller, it's just a whirling vortex. The drama isn't capital-D Dramatic, just seething.

It is an unsettling read from the opening scene of a killed and skinned rabbit, and sits in that uncanny gothic-lite space for the entire novel. There is a minimal cast of characters, and it's an incredible character study of people who are mostly unlikeable, deeply flawed, and every time I wanted to become fond of a character, I wrinkled my nose at a tiny detail. It's not a study of Monstrous People have Good Sides either, and draws more firmly from the gothic use of the grotesque to acknowledge the (sometimes deeply buried) monsters in all of us. There is something monstrous about all of us.

In particular, I wanted to feel protective of the seemingly-adrift Neve, on the cusp of adulthood, thrown a grand, birthday by her father. The feasting is not just the unsettlingly adult party (oysters for an 18th?), but the vampiric feasting all characters have off each other. And in her perspective, she shares the dreams and visions she has of others, a violence that is described so casually.

Yet again, I encounter a modern Australian female author that I want to re-read to study the pacing that led me to want to follow these characters down the rabbit hole. My own WIP has a limited cast of characters and I would love to know how to also make readers not care about the relationships and friendships that are left in the gaps.

"Inside and entirely alone she feels acutely swaddled by the walls, her headache still rippling, a warm pressure tightening against her already tight skin as though she is in the process of being slowly poached. She appreciated the momentary distraction of her parents but now that she is alone it comes back to her as fiercely as rage. In her head she pictures her hand pressed to [her] belly, clawing past the skin and muscle, into the swelling balloon of [her] uterus, and squeezing it to pulp. She knows it's grotesque, that she is grotesque, but she cannot shake it, cannot get it to leave her: the hand, the belly, the womb."

"[She] would rather rot slowly and wetly than burn."

[nina.reads.books · Rating 3 out of 5]

Feast by Emily O’Grady is a novel about three women and one unusual weekend where a whole lot of secrets spill out and threaten to rock an already dysfunctional family.

Alison is a retired actress who is married to Patrick, an ageing though still popular musician, and together they live in a rundown old house in a village in Scotland. Patrick’s teenage daughter Neve has arrived to stay for a year from Australia. The story is set over the weekend of Neve’s 18th birthday where Patrick has decided to host a feast for the family including Neve’s mother Shannon who has insisted on coming to visit.

Initially the chapters slowly help us get to know each of the three women. They are each unique characters yet still appear quite normal. Once we hear from Shannon in the middle section, the women begin to unravel their secrets and the ugly and dark truths are revealed.

Feast was at times eerie, unsettling and uncomfortable. Not quite gothic but gave off that vibe. Initially the writing was very engaging and I was intrigued by the characters. But while this held a lot of promise it ultimately didn’t hold my interest through to the end.

Each of the women are complicated and yet you never quite get to the bottom of any of the characters. Some of the secrets were more compelling than others but it also felt like there wasn’t much redemption or conclusions. Which isn’t always necessary but here it felt like the reader was left hanging a little.

I did enjoy the gothic-esque style and the way the story was told from each of the women. The way the story unfolded with a mic-drop from Shannon in the middle which then leads to the untangling of the secrets was structurally interesting. Overall a book that I enjoyed but didn’t absolutely love.

Thank you to @allenandunwin for my #gifted copy. Feast is out now.