After her success with Addition (2008), Toni Jordan is back with a second novel, Fall Girl, an attempt, according to Jordan, to recreate on the page the romantic screen comedies of the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s. There are echoes of the zoology professor in search of million-dollar funding in Bringing Up Baby, the steamy flirtations in a luxury location of To Catch a Thief, and the witty repartee and double-crossing of Charade, three films that Jordan has cited as inspiration.

And on my travels I came across
a boy holding his purple heart
in his hands like a broken cup. I touched
the handle – it turned into a bluebird
and tottered away on unsteady
feet. The boy unfolded
himself into a crane and tucked
his head under a wilted wing. His leg, a post
from which a flag flew red, blue and white.
I lowered the flapping thing onto the ground

and it spread out like ink. It was the cold
of the black-and-white tiles of my mother’s kitchen
seeping through my bare feet. I was
a knight. The morning sun laid
its hard hand across the breakfast toast
in stripes. The cat sneezed fairies
as it washed the plates with its whiskers. I asked
for a map. It was lowered on a glistening line
through a searing heart-shaped hole
in the sky. God loves you. I traced

my travels with tendrils of thyme.
When I got to where I was
my hands were helium and I was floating …
The air was cotton candy and kissed me
stickily. Then I spied you waiting
on the broad bank, cradling a rainbow.
I let the air escape my hands
and landed in the middle
of the bedroom you’d unfolded
like a rusty accordion. We curled

up in the soft sheets like stoats
in the dark. Now we sleep
to dream of life. In the morning
cabbages will shed their leaves
like jackets, trousers, petticoats.
You’ll simmer a cauldron
of silver stars and I, I will weave
you stories from gossamer
and dew. Wait now – the cat’s
coughed an elf. Wake now.

Madigan Mine is the promising first novel by Kirstyn McDermott, who won the Aurealis, Ditmar and Chronos awards for her short story ‘Painless’. Narrated in the first person by Alex Bishop, a young man in his mid-twenties with not much going for him, Madigan Mine tells the story of Alex’s relationship with Madigan Sargood, a childhood friend who re-enters his life after a prolonged absence. The two fall into a reckless and obsessive love affair, but, as people keep noting, there is something dangerous about Madigan. Even after her death, she continues to exhibit an enormous amount of control over Alex, but is she really haunting him, or is it simply Alex’s obsession that refuses to die?

McDermott’s prose is exquisite but at times incongruous with her narrator’s character. Her eloquence sits uneasily in the thoughts of a male, directionless, twenty-something drop-out, as evinced by his limited dialogue, which hits closer to the mark. The dialogue, though, is spot on.

The self-imposed isolation of the narrator, and the sinister hint of the supernatural, underscore the Gothic elements. Here, the setting is crucial. The Sargood mansion and the Catholic cathedral are effective, while Alex’s Melbourne share-house does much to contemporise this Poe-like tale of obsession. But this is not simply a work of Gothic horror. Like all writers of speculative fiction, McDermott pushes genre boundaries. Alex’s psychological turmoil coils throughout the narrative, providing enough twists to maintain momentum, though the plotting is clunky in places, such as when the reader and Ruth – Alex’s sometime housemate and Madigan’s rival for his affections – are delivered ‘proof’ that Alex isn’t simply losing his mind. The fantasy elements are also strong, though McDermott takes longer to embrace them than may be necessary. Her blend of psychological thriller, Gothic horror and fantasy is truly engaging.

The Captain’s keen to explore, go deeper,
Take core samples, measure astronomical tilt.
He says the clues are down there and the truth;
Our forebears, numerously well-preserved,
Point to the paradox of their success: death
Learnt from them and wore a cunning face.

We throng the younger layers of sediment,
Lie curled in the embrace of great forests
That overran new land, perished, grew back.
And lower down we’re much in evidence, too,
Across the globe, a race undrowned and diligent.
We were much smaller then. We cowered and hid.

The mystery is in the interval, the Captain says,
Where nothing but the same poor pollen remains.
No larger predators, no catlike cometary snarl,
Only a grin composed of mystery’s missing teeth.
The Captain works so hard he barely eats his kids.
‘What happened, what happened?’, he squeaks.