A rare, original and stunning novel about a remarkable girl who learns the hard way that the truth doesn't always set you free - with echoes of Jasper Jones, Seven Little Australians and Cloudstreet.
As a child, trapped in the savage act of growing up, Olive had sensed she was at the middle of something, so close to the nucleus she could almost touch it with her tongue. But like looking at her own nose for too long, everything became blurry and she had to pull away. She'd reached for happiness as a child not yet knowing that the memories she was concocting would become deceptive. That memories get you where they want you not the other way around.
The setting is the Mallee, wide flat scrubland in north-western Victoria, country where men are bred quiet, women stoic and the gothic is never far away. Olive Lovelock has just turned twelve. She is smart, fanciful and brave and on the cusp of something darker than the small world she has known her entire life.
She knows that adults aren't very good at keeping secrets and makes it her mission to uncover as many as she can. When she learns that she once had a baby sister who died - a child unacknowledged by her close but challenging family - Olive becomes convinced it was murder. Her obsession with the mystery and relentless quest to find out what happened have seismic repercussions for the rest of her family and their community. As everything starts to change, it is Olive herself who has the most to lose as the secrets she unearths multiply and take on complicated lives of their own.
Little Gods is a novel about the mess of family, about vengeance and innocence lost. It explores resilience and girlhood and questions how families live with all of their complexities and contradictions. Resonating with echoes of great Australian novels like Seven Little Australians, Cloudstreet, and Jasper Jones, Little Gods is told with similar idiosyncrasy, insight and style. Funny and heartbreaking, this is a rare and original novel about a remarkable girl who learns the hard way that the truth doesn't always set you free.
About the Author
Jenny Ackland is a writer and teacher from Melbourne. She has worked in offices, sold textbooks in a university bookshop, taught English overseas and worked as a proof-reader and freelance editor. Her short fiction has been published in literary magazines and listed in prizes and awards. Her debut novel The Secret Son - a "Ned Kelly-Gallipoli mash-up" about truth and history - was published in 2015. Little Gods is her second novel.
Industry Reviews
'A delicate evocation of a uniquely Australian childhood with moments of poignant almost-painful recognition. Ackland captures the bewildering nature of what it is to be young in the inexplicable world of adults.' Sofie Laguna, award-winning author of The Eye of the Sheep and The Choke
