An Astronaut’s Life (Sonja Dechian, Text)

An Astronaut’s Life is the debut short-story collection from ABC Radio producer and editor Sonja Dechian. Her book circles some big themes, namely our changing climate and ecological destruction, while focussing in on the mundane, domestic lives of her characters. Dechian’s clever stories reminded me of another local writer, Rebecca Giggs, who also has a knack for dissecting how humans are shaped by their environment and vice versa. Stylistically there’s a lightness to Dechian’s prose that prevents her collection from becoming too bogged down in seriousness, resulting in literary fiction that feels fresh and politically relevant. It’s also refreshing to read short fiction that is primarily plot driven but still manages to evoke the emotions of the characters. Dechian seems fond of narrative hooks and sets up each story to leave the reader guessing. Perhaps the endings of one or two stories don’t quite live up to their initial, enticing premises, but this is a minor quibble. 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.

Emily Laidlaw is a Melbourne-based writer and editor

Books+Publishing pre-publication reviews are supported by the Copyright Agency Cultural Fund.

Category: Reviews