Diving, Falling
Overview
“A masterclass in rendering all the many dimensions of the human heart.”
—Porochista Khakpour, author of Tehrangeles
A captivating debut novel about one woman reinventing her life after the death of her husband, and a brilliant meditation on marriage, aging, sex, and art.
Leila Whittaker is a novelist married to the renowned artist Ken Black, whose paintings grace museums around the world and sell for millions. For years, instead of writing, Leila has been the mediator in her family: she smooths ruffled feathers between her sons, endures Ken’s volatile moods, and even swallows the bitter pill of his endless affairs. All this, for the quiet hum of creative freedom her marriage provides. Or so she tells herself.
But when Ken dies, leaving his artist’s estate to their two sons, and the pointed amount of sixty-nine thousand dollars to his muse, Anita, Leila decides she’s had enough. It’s time to seek some solitude and pleasure of her own, and to once again settle back into writing—finding new ideas, fresh expression after fearing the words were blocked forever.
An exhilarating journey through grief, betrayal, and the intoxicating rediscovery of joy, Diving, Falling candidly examines the calculations and sacrifices women make to keep the peace, escape their pasts, and find the agency to pursue their own life’s work.
Details
- Format
- Size
- Extent
- ISBN
- RRP
- Pub date
- Rights held
- Other rights
- Paperback
- 5.1in x 7.8in
- 256 pages
- 9781964992488
- USD$18.00
- 3 January 1970
- ANZ & NA
- Jenny Darling
Categories
Praise
“There’s much that’s new and very charming about Mirmohamadi’s approach to the after-marriage novel, particularly Leila herself, and her determination to tear up the scripts given to older women, to grieving women, to wealthy women, to mothers, to women artists; to tear them all up and write a new set of stories to live by.”
“Much of the novel’s narrative propulsion comes from the unfolding of Leila’s multi-faceted character. She is a complex woman on many levels … As a psychological drama, it forensically dissects complex relationships, in a fresh style devoid of clichés … Mirmohamadi’s writing was a high point for me. She is especially masterful at crafting nuance in interpersonal encounters … The prose is immersive and insightful, with layers of deep universal understandings that perhaps only art—including literature—can deliver.”
About the Author
Kylie Mirmohamadi is a writer and academic whose work and research spans domestic Australian landscapes, online fan fiction, and 19th-century English literature. She has a PhD in History and is an Adjunct Senior Research Fellow in English and Creative Writing at La Trobe University. Kylie lives with her family in Melbourne, where she often finds ideas for writing when walking among the tree-lined creeks of her inner suburb with her poodle. Her first novel, Diving, Falling, was published in 2024.
