Family. Can’t live with ‘em, can’t live without ‘em. That’s the premise of Steven Amsterdam’s second novel-in-pieces, following the life of a family over three decades. We open with Ruth and her children Ben and Georgia fleeing a divorce to sister Natalie’s household. Natalie and husband Peter have two kids, the extroverted Sasha, and whimsical Alek. It’s a strangely domestic world the characters inhabit, a placeless dream of suburbia with picket fences and green lawns. The twist in this so far ordinary tale is that every member will end up with an extra-ordinary power. Except, and this is Amsterdam’s greatest trick, they’re not that extraordinary. They’re rather unobtrusive, and not even that helpful. The family lifesaver becomes a super swimmer, the drop out learns to fly. What is extra-ordinary is the surgeon’s knife Amsterdam takes to relationships, exploring, with the most gentle of touches, every possibility from watching a sibling doing it, to reading a son’s private diary, to leaving home for the first time. The final chapter, when all is revealed, is a truly haunting meditation on memory and its ability to not just recall, but create.

The Europe of Christos Tsolkias’ vision is so utterly dead, so wrecked from centuries of war, religion and migration, that’s it’s a surprise to find how alive this story is. It charts the tale of Greek-Australian Isaac, and his family’s cursed fairy tale ancestry, as he returns to Europe. It’s a bit like a Kontiki tour, if a Kontiki tour involves ghosts, Jews, blood, porn, sex, drugs, blood, Jews and sex (I’ve only heard rumours). From scene right down to language it’s some of the most visceral, violent writing I have encountered. I keep thinking Glenn Duncan’s The Last Werewolf (there are elements of vampirism here, too) and American Psycho. And it is poisoned writing, by decay, decadence, and anti-Semitism. Australia comes off as a naive but beautiful country, and with Dead Europe’s vision Hell on Earth, I couldn’t be more glad to live here.