| Summary |
Katoomba, early 1990s. Heather and David are two young people on the brink of adulthood, drawn together by their study of Italian. David is smitten with Heather, but has no idea how she feels about him. They have something in common, besides Italian, both children of struggling single mothers, who have raised them through a series of grungy share houses in the inner west of Sydney, before moving to the Blue Mountains. At a festive evening to celebrate Heather's final exam, something happens that will change their lives forever. Sydney, early 1970s. Jan, the unconfident daughter of working-class parents and the first in her family to go to university, strikes up a friendship with bohemian, assured Alicia. They quickly become close. But one night down by the Blackwattle Bay -- the night of Gough Whitlam's dismissal -- things go badly awry. A tender and poignant novel about longing, and the way in which it echoes down the generations, The Sirens Sing tells of desire, how it haunts and affects us, and how, from generation to generation, there are echoes, overlaps and intersections in how we love, who we love, and why we love, as we repeat the same patterns around love, desire, longing and compulsion over and over again, like moths to a flame. |
