‘Conversations can be really dull compared to our inner lives, and I find that fascinating. The book was, for me, a real exploration of that difference.’

Each month we celebrate an Australian debut release of fiction or non-fiction in the Kill Your Darlings First Book Club. For April that debut is A Room Called Earth by Madeleine Ryan, out now from Scribe Publications.

A Room Called Earth is a brilliant debut novel from a neurodiverse author that explores a young woman’s magical, sensitive, and passionate inner world.

A young woman gets ready to go to a party. She arrives, feels overwhelmed, leaves, and then returns. Minutely attuned to the people who come into her view, and alternating between alienation and profound connection, she is hilarious, self-aware, sometimes acerbic, and always honest.

And by the end of the night, she’s shown us something radical about love, loss, and the need to belong.

Further reading:

Read Ellen Cregan’s review of A Room Called Earth in our April books Roundup.

Read Madeleine’s Shelf Reflection on her reading habits and the writing that inspires her.

Buy a copy of the book from Brunswick Bound.

(more…)

The post Madeleine Ryan on ‘A Room Called Earth’: First Book Club appeared first on Kill Your Darlings.