Gone Guru (Nadine Browne, Fremantle Press)

Nadine Browne’s debut novel, Gone Guru, is a light-hearted and witty cosy mystery that brings together characters from different walks of life, including some inspired by real-life figures and others who are real people – notably Joyce Carol Oates. With a distinctly literary bent for book lovers, the novel explores themes of selfhood and connection, class and education, and the grey area between “good” and “bad”.

Aspiring writer Noni arrives in New York City from remote Western Australia to attend a fiction intensive at NYU led by Oates, only to be distracted by the sudden disappearance of her new roommate, Vincent. As she investigates, she drifts between the haughty world of NYU’s graduate halls, her Harlem abode, and the Lower East Side domain of an elderly former social worker, Danny, who knew Vincent as a boy. She is aided – and occasionally hindered – by the sharp-tongued Merelis, daughter of her landlady. Along the way, Noni confronts her former life as a cult runaway while contemplating Vincent’s philosophical teachings. She slowly comes to appreciate a George Saunders observation discussed in class: that literature resists easy distinctions between good and bad, kind and cruel.

While the mystery is intriguing, some readers may find the pacing meanders at times – a criticism that Noni’s fellow students level at her in class. Nevertheless, Gone Guru is an enjoyable read, elevated by its memorable characters, literary sensibility and a philosophical undertone. It’s for readers who enjoy Richard Osman’s books, Benjamin Stevenson’s Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone and Tess Woods’s The Venice Hotel.

Books+Publishing reviewer: Hannah Cartmel is an editor, former bookseller and co-founder of The Rag & Bone Man Press Inc. Books+Publishing is Australia’s number-one source of pre-publication book reviews.

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

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