The Tower (Carol Lefevre, Spinifex Press)

The Tower follows Carol Lefevre’s well-received 2021 Christina Stead Prize–shortlisted novella Murmurations. Set in Australia and England, The Tower is exquisitely sophisticated in imagery and form. It is structured around a major continuous narrative across 12 short stories centring on a woman named Dorelia. Unbeknown to her children, Dorelia buys a house with a tower, a symbol from fairytales, particularly Rapunzel. Dorelia reimagines the crone from the original story as the heroine, a childless woman seeking a daughter. As Dorelia declines physically and mentally, she sees herself resembling a witch who is a queen in disguise, retreating into her tower. This spiralling tale is interspersed with stories and backstories connected by shared characters and themes. Women’s lives—from youth to old age, encompassing memory and its loss—are explored as characters grapple with sacrificing independence for family or choosing freedom and the seething stigma of childlessness. Young women wish to escape their families, old women are infantilised by their children. Other stories in this innovative and impeccably crafted experimental work circle these feminist themes, which also include buildings as places of either refuge or imprisonment, and the importance of art (the book features an epigraph from painter Margaret Olley). Layered and revelatory, The Tower invites re-reading. It is recommended for readers of Amanda Lohrey’s The Labyrinth and Charlotte Wood’s The Weekend. 

Joy Lawn has worked for independent bookshops and blogs at PaperbarkWords.

Category: Reviews