JOINT WINNER OF THE NORMA K HEMMING AWARD
REVIEWS
“From Here On, Monsters is a genuinely exciting debut from an Australian writer. This novel is playful, allegorical and formally ambitious, qualities that lend it a distinctly international flavour, in the way of Peter Carey’s early work […] And, like Carey’s work, it has something urgent to say about contemporary Australia.”
— Maria Takolander, The Saturday Paper
“Throughout From Here On, Monsters Bryer maintains a curious dialectic between the real and the fantastic, one that grants the novel the oddly dreamlike air of Paul Auster or Joanna Kavenna. […] Like her prose, which is elegantly understated and pleasingly direct, Bryer’s poise in keeping the novel’s multiple elements aloft would be the envy of far more experienced novelists. Yet her metafictional playfulness cannot distract from the seriousness of her intent. For as its various strands converge, the novel distorts and unhinges reality in powerful and unsettling ways, asking us to see how people such as Jhon are rendered invisible, and the human cost of that process.”
— James Bradley, The Weekend Australian Review
“Every word is carefully chosen, leaving the sentences short and sharp. This attention to detail is not only a joy for the reader, but also serves as a clever literary device given that the premise of the novel is focused on words and the power they yield. […] This is a beautiful, thought-provoking novel and one I will be reflecting on for a long time.”
— Kaylia Payne, Lip Mag
“It’s easy to be frustrated with the structure and content of Bryer’s book; those after straightforward storytelling with character histories and clean-edged explanations will be discouraged. But this is not realist fiction; it’s an experimental and high-end literary game. It’s not a page turner, but a page teaser that demands careful reading”
— Thuy On, The Age & Sydney Morning Herald
“like a detailed picture slowly coming into focus […] Bryer’s novel doubles in on itself […] It is a gathering and spinning of stories, ideas and words that have the reader thinking and interpreting again and again, like any good piece of art.”
— Jemimah Brewster, Arts Hub, 4.5 stars
“wonderfully strange and often enigmatic”
— Fiona Wright, ABR Books of the Year
“This is one of those books that stays with you for days after you’ve finished it because it asks more questions than it answers. Defying easy categorisation into any kind of genre (is it speculative fiction? A thriller?), the narrative itself also defies easy or simple reading. As we follow the bibliophile narrator, Cameron, into an investigation of a mysterious codex, and of the very fabric of reality itself, we are asked to investigate our own reading of this novel. In the tradition of Borges, this story explores the experience of reading and writing, but it is not too meta to have a heart […] Once I had finished I wanted to pick it up and read it again.”
— Better Read than Dead
“Best new talent: Elizabeth Bryer. This Australian debut has it all: formal ambition, an appreciation of the power of enigma, and heart.”
— The Saturday Paper Best Books of 2019
“If the word for ‘world’ vanishes, does the world still exist? If we choose not to see it, will a problem become invisible? These questions lie at the heart of Elizabeth Bryer’s debut novel From Here On, Monsters, [where anything] ruthlessly ‘othered’ eventually loses its place in the collective consciousness, driven to oblivion off the edge of the known world. […] Bryer’s novel is an engrossing and accessible read, and a bold statement about culture and humanity. A story for lovers of intelligent, thought-provoking and whipsmart dystopias.”
— Clare Rhoden, Aurealis
PRAISE
“A novel that places the reader into the abyss of storytelling. This is more than a book of secrets, codes, geniuses, history and language. It is more than you could imagine.”
— Tara June Winch
“Traverses the chasm between truth and history, and challenges our faith in the liberatory potential of art. It’s a modern Australian novel about modern Australia that, refreshingly, doesn’t read at all like a modern Australian novel.”
— Shaun Prescott
“Elizabeth Bryer writes with compassion and generosity.”
— Tony Birch
PUBLISHER’S DESCRIPTION
In a city locked in a kind of perpetual twilight, antiquarian bookseller Cameron Raybould accepts a very strange commission – the valuation of a rare codex.
Within its fragile pages Cameron makes a curious discovery. Although seemingly ancient, the codex tells of a modern mystery: an academic missing for eleven years. Stranger still, as finding the truth becomes ever more of an obsession, Cameron begins to notice frightening lapses in memory. As if, all around, words, images, even people are beginning to fade from sight. As if unravelling the riddle of this book may be unravelling the nature of reality itself. And something frightening and unknown is taking its place…
A timely work of unbridled imagination from a startling new voice, Elizabeth Bryer.
Purchase a copy here, here or here, or at your local bookshop.
Elizabeth Bryer 