It’s 1986, and 'beautiful, radical ideas' are in the air. The narrator of Theory & Practice, a young woman originally from Sri Lanka, arrives in Melbourne for graduate school to research the novels of Virginia Woolf. In the bohemian neighborhood of St. Kilda she meets artists, activists, students—and Kit. He claims to be in a 'deconstructed relationship.' They become lovers, and the narrator’s feminism comes up against her jealousy. Meanwhile, an entry in Woolf’s diary upends what the narrator knows about her literary idol, and throws her own work into disarray.
Deftly crafted ... The excesses of 1980s academia are ripe fodder for de Kretser’s mordant wit, but her aim here is more ambitious — and the results more rewarding. An Australian novelist of the first rank... de Kretser has long been fascinated by the gap between our ideals and our actions ... A taut, enthralling hybrid of fact and fiction impossible to disentangle, situates itself firmly in the mess.
Bristling and formally inventive ... A Sally Rooney-ish, political/feminist picaresque, whose fiercely truth-seeking narrator both acts within and reports upon the shape-shifting social and academic organisms she’s part of ... De Kretser’s writing is unfailingly smart.
Like a coming-of-age novel or perhaps a coming-to-writing novel, and De Kretser is a beautifully sly writer ... Anything but conventional ... At the end of the book, our narrator has grasped — like Woolf’s moth drawn to the light — that when held together, theory and practice is the truth we seek.
