An Astronaut's Life

by Sonja Dechian

In sparkling prose, Sonja Dechian’s profound, moving and wry stories speak to our deepest yearning for connection and the inevitability of our isolation.

From a terrorist cell of cyber-bullying victims working to annihilate the digital memory of their humiliation to a pandemic that leaves grieving parents battling for the media spotlight, these affecting tales invite us to examine our inability to control the world around us—and our own desires.

An Astronaut’s Life is a beautiful debut from an intelligent new voice in Australian writing.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction

253 pages, Paperback

First published July 29, 2015

Reviews

[Marianne · Rating 4 out of 5]

An Astronaut’s Life is the first book by Australian editor, radio and TV producer and author, Sonja Dechain. It is a collection of nine short stories of varying length. Some are very short (10-20 pages) and might benefit from expanding; others are of perfect length (Charles Darwin’s Revenge, The Architect). Dechain touches on a range of topics: cyberbullying, asylum seeker boat people, Tour de France, mental illness and bird flu; and uses some interesting settings: the graveyard of a serial killer’s victims, a futuristic animal theme park, a birdless beach, a hospital labour ward, and a school perimeter fence.

While there are some laugh-out-loud moments, Dechain’s stories will also have the reader thinking: about the experience of being in a coma, the pervasiveness of electronic media, the extinction of whole species, floral tributes to victims and the rising level of the oceans. Some stories will leave the reader a bit bemused; others are frighteningly realistic and quite possibly prescient; all are written in dazzling prose. Full of originality and intelligence, this is a remarkable debut.

[Michael Livingston · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent collection - sometimes creepy, sometimes moving, always compelling. The Fallen is probably the shortest story in the collection, but it completely floored me. There's something eerie about most of these stories, with the banality of everyday life offset by the rain that never stops, or the extinction of all the world's birds. It's a wonderful, exciting debut.


* I was unreasonably annoyed by the family in the title story looking at planets through a telescope in the story where it rained non-stop - how could they see through the clouds?

[Text Publishing · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you're looking for a new voice and intriguing angle from which to regard this strange world we live in, why not dip into a short story by Sonja Dechian?

She chatted to Text about her inspirations and motivations: "If anything, I think the stories are linked by characters who are attempting to control their lives and uncover their own motivations...I don’t really aim to reach resolutions, but I am interested in situations where people are effectively powerless but hold on to the illusion of control over some aspect of their world."

‘Head-spinning, sometimes spine-tingling. Every story here is a strange and remarkable gem.’ Wayne Macauley

‘By the final page I was fully immersed in the book’s world—one both fantastical and eerily similar to real life. I wished I could have stayed longer.’ Bookseller & Publisher

[Glitterbomb · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a very clever little collection. It was thought provoking and engaging and provided a unique outlook on issues that are relevant to the modern world.

A wonderful debut, I will most likely go on to read her other work.

[Jane]

Really enjoyed reading this as bedtime stories to my husband. Most of the stories are unresolved, a moment in an often-strange time. Nearly all had, for me, a feeling of underlying despair. The end of the world seems nigh, but never in any way that's specified or pinned down. There are many images that will stick with me - the bird and the rocks, the whale in its tank, the child and her father on an island roof.

[Jaclyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

An impressive and even debut collection. Dechian sets a lovely eerie tone in each story. Hope she goes on to write a great novel.

[Cathy]

I had to stop reading these short stories before bed as they were quite unsettling. It is an interesting collection. If I try to think of a unifying theme it is possibly that all the stories seemed to be about one thing, plot-wise, then when you read the end the point, or ‘message’, of each shifts to something that at first seemed incidental.

One of the stories is about a couple that have bought a house which turns out to have a number of bodies buried in the backyard. The narrator becomes obsessed with the activity of the police digging up the yard and does not shift to the hotel provided, even when her partner and child do. She is ‘working’ from home, initially caring for her partner’s child, who she has a strong relationship with, and then essentially lying low. Eventually she does relocate and it becomes clear the obsession is just a side effect of other problems in their relationship, and I think the story is about how you negotiate the week points and your own failures when you do love each other, the family you have created is important to you, but the seemingly trivial elements of life could be what breaks things.

Another story is about children in a world where birds have suddenly fallen out of the sky one day. This emerges part way through the story, at first it seems to describe a fairly ordinary camping trip taken by a group of teenagers negotiating the usual emotions and relationships. The awkwardness and uncomfortable felling at that point in life is instantly recognisable. In one way the story is about trying to fit in and impress friends, the climax of the story though, in which the young people encounter a creature that appears to be a bird, comes as a shock. At first they’re stunned, then one throws a stone, then they all throw stones intent on killing the bird. The story ends and you’re not sure if they do.

Other stories include one about a theme park built around almost extinct animals, a man having a relationship with his childhood sweetheart who is suffering from a mental illness that makes her think she is still young, two boys in a friendship where one is navigating the after effects cyber-bullying on his family & out to revenge his sister, and a family in the midst of a flood from seemingly never ending rain.

If the stories are about our isolation perhaps that’s why I find them disturbing. Isolation can be so damaging.

[Emkoshka · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very random find while trawling the library catalogue for short story collections, and hooray for serendipity because it made my country-city-country train commutes go by effortlessly this week. I enjoyed every story in this collection; they had exactly the unsettling, offbeat tone I look for in short stories, that subtle uncanny otherworldliness that reminds me of the writing of Samanta Schweblin, Iain Reid and Ted Chiang. If I had to pick a favourite, it's a toss-up between 'After Charles Frick' and 'The Foreman'. Again, hooray for random reads!

[Meanderer · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this to be an excellent book. I enjoyed each story. I could actually follow what was happening in each story - this is not always the case. There's plenty to think and chew over in each story. It's a book I'd enjoy returning to in the future.

[Margaret Galbraith · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't normally read short stories but this was such a mixture I quite enjoyed it. Such a variety of stories here. Worth a look as the author's style is very descriptive. Had to read it quickly as once again someone else wanted to read the book at my library!