Seven years after the Miles Franklin Award shortlisted Storyland, author Catherine McKinnon has published a remarkable new novel, To Sing of War. I really liked and admired Storyland (see here) so I didn’t hesitate.
As you will know if you’ve been following my adventures with Shooting Blanks at the Anzac Legend by Donna Coates, you will know that I am fascinated by Australia’s preoccupation with war fiction, and have even set up a page in the top menu to list the novels I know about. To Sing of War will join the long list of WW2 novels, but is one of the few to be set in the Pacific War, and Papua New Guinea in particular. (The Offspring’s paternal grandfather spent his war in PNG, though he never spoke about it, so this has added interest for me.)