Beam of Light

Shifts in tone, setting and narration create a sense of the uncanny in Beam of Light, Kinsella’s haunting collection of stories.

A man is disturbed by the sight of a familiar dining table and chairs atop an impending bonfire of bulldozed trees, a girl finds a fox skeleton and feels compelled to protect its spirit by dispersing its bones over the valley, a couple are invited to dinner by Christians new to town – an occasion that quickly turns heavy and strange, two men awkwardly meet again when their daughters attend the same ballet class, and a man and woman struggle to balance the threats of addiction and poverty with the joys and hopes of a new baby.

Stories range in location from Ireland to Germany to Greece to the Australian countryside – threatened by catastrophic heat, land clearing, housing estates and strip malls – and Kinsella’s characters, so often on the edge, sear the consciousness.

Praise for John Kinsella’s writing:

‘The stories never forget they were written on land with history; Aboriginal land that was stolen, and the blood that was shed, and the skin of colonisation over a deep past.’ – Rachel Watts, Westerly

‘Impressively skilful and incisively wise.’ – Riley Faulds, Plumwood Mountain Journal

‘What they all have in common is depth of characterisation most commonly found in a full-length novel.’ – Erich Mayer, Arts Hub