Cusp

by Josephine Wilson

Two women, two lives, two paths. But are they so very different? In this poignant, dark, humane and funny novel, mother and daughter take turns opening old wounds and replaying old scripts, struggling with what can and cannot be said. Cusp is a novel about how small worlds are part of big worlds. It's also about being a girl, about loving your mother, about life and death, and about not quite being there and almost being here.

247 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

Josephine Wilson is a Perth-based writer. Her writing career began in the area of performance. Her early works included The Geography of Haunted Places, with Erin Hefferon, and Customs. Her first novel was Cusp, (UWA Publishing, 2005). Josephine has lectured and taught in the tertiary sector. She is the busy parent of two children and works as a sessional staff member at Curtin University, where she teaches in the Humanities Honours Program, in Creative Writing and in Art and Design history. She completed her Masters of Philosophy at Queensland University and her PhD at UWA. Her novel Extinctions (UWA Publishing, 2016) was the winner of the inaugural Dorothy Hewett Prize and has been shortlisted for the 2017 Miles Franklin Award.

Reviews

[Lily R]

I stopped reading this at page 130

[J]

This book was mostly just very sad. Loneliness, bullying, eating disorders, suicide attempts, cancer, sexual assault, they’re all in there. It also felt a bit rambling in parts, and like it wasn’t really *about* anything.
It made me very glad I wasn’t around to experience the misogyny and racism that was rampant in Australia in the 1970s.
Two and a half stars, rounded up to three. It was redeemed somewhat by the mother and daughter really connecting at the book’s conclusion.

[Lily C]

2.5

[Tarmon Simpson]

This is a pretty engaging Aussie book. It's a 'slice of life' kind of novel - the little stories within it are interesting but overall the book doesn't really go anywhere. I feel like the author tries a bit too hard to be 'arty' sometimes, resulting in parts of the book that just don't ring entirely true. Still I was interested and engaged most of the time, and it was an overall enjoyable read.