An evening with the Messiah

by Catherine Jinks

381 pages, Paperback

Published November 28, 1996

About the author

Catherine Jinks is the Australian author of more than thirty books for all ages. She has garnered many awards, including the Children’s Book Council of Australia Book of the Year Award(three times), the Victorian Premier’s Award, the Aurealis Award for Science Fiction, the Australian Ibby Award, and the Davitt Award for Crime Fiction. Her work has been published in Australia, New Zealand, Britain, the United States, Germany, Spain, France, Portugal, Poland, Russia, the Czech Republic and Thailand.

Catherine was born in Brisbane, Queensland, in 1963. She grew up in Papua New Guinea, where her father worked as a patrol officer. Her high-school years were spent in Sydney, NSW; in 2006, her alma mater, Ku-ring-gai High School, named its library after her.

From 1982 to 1986, Catherine studied at the University of Sydney, graduating with an honours degree in medieval history. She then worked on Westpac Banking Corporation’s staff magazine for approximately seven years. In 1992 she married Peter Dockrill, a Canadian journalist; in 1993 she and her husband left Australia for a brief spell in Nova Scotia, where she began to write full time. They returned to Australia in 1994, and Catherine gave birth to her daughter Hannah in 1997. Since 1998, she and her family have been living in Leura, NSW.

She has two brothers, and two pet rats. Like most people in Leura, she has become a slave to her garden, but not to the extent that she’ll buy rooting powder.

Catherine has been writing books since she was eight years old. She doesn’t expect to stop writing them any time soon.

Author photo: Catherine Jinks in front of 'Conceptual Networks', by artist Paul du Moulin.
Photo by Paul du Moulin

Reviews

[Sarah-Jane · Rating 3 out of 5]

I began reading this last year and forgot about it, so I picked it up again a few days ago and managed to finish it this time. This is a funny novel. I mean, it's odd. I really wish I'd read it when it came out, in the 90s. I recognise many of the settings, and when this was published, I was of an age with many of the young characters: early 20s, having my eyes opened to great art, classical music, essentially 'The Western Canon'. But this book is a little confused, to me. I think it was meant to be a portrait of a charismatic person and the byzantine social machinations in his orbit. But there was something sneaky about the way one of the storylines ended up being about stalking, and consent. And it was left rather unresolved. So this gets 3 stars for reminding me of my youth, but really 2 and a 1/2 because it didn't end properly.

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book many years ago, and for some reason it has stuck with me. I found the characters so engaging.