Phantom Days (Angela O’Keeffe, UQP)

“A book comes into the world knowing it is a saviour, of sorts.” So begins Phantom Days, the 3rd novel by award-winning author Angela O’Keeffe (The Sitter, Night Blue), a captivating meditation on the transformative power of stories. Narrated in part by a book itself, the novel unfolds through multiple perspectives: the book, its reader, Isabel, and Isabel’s mother Maggie. At the centre of the narrative is the evolving relationship between Isabel and the book, a bond shaped by mutual observation and growing intimacy. Through the book’s attentive gaze, troubling truths about a man in Isabel’s life begin to surface, signalling danger closing in on Isabel and those closest to her. Phantom Days asks what it means to read closely – books, people, even the small signs that gather at the edges of perception – and whether stories can truly save a life. O’Keeffe’s prose is spare yet emotionally resonant, each sentence precisely calibrated and rich with intertextual echoes that reverberate across the characters’ lives. Formally inventive and thematically assured, Phantom Days will appeal to literary readers and to librarians and educators seeking contemporary Australian fiction that interrogates the power of storytelling and the radical intimacy between readers and texts. With its controlled intensity and subtle psychological depth, this novel further confirms O’Keeffe as a distinctive and compelling voice in Australian literature.

Books+Publishing reviewer: Samantha Mylan is a librarian and freelance reviewer. Books+Publishing is Australia’s number-one source of pre-publication book reviews.

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