This Devastating Fever

Sometimes you need to go deep into the past, to make sense of the present.   Alice had not expected to spend the first twenty years of the twenty-first century writing about Leonard Woolf. When she stood on Morell Bridge watching fireworks explode from the rooftops of Melbourne at the start of a new millennium, she had only two thoughts. One was: the fireworks are better in Sydney. The other was: was the world’s technology about to crash down around her? The world’s technology did not crash. But there were worse disasters to come: Environmental collapse. The return of fascism. Wars. A sexual reckoning. A plague. Uncertain of what to do she picks up an unfinished project and finds herself trapped with the ghosts of writers past. What began as a novel about a member of the Bloomsbury set, colonial administrator, publisher and husband of one the most famous English writers of the twentieth century becomes something else altogether. Complex, heartfelt, darkly funny and deeply moving, this is Sophie Cunningham’s most important book to date – a dazzlingly original novel about what it’s like to live through a time that feels like the end of days, and how we can find comfort and answers in the past.​

About the Author :
Sophie Cunningham is the author of eight books including her recent collection of essays, City of Trees and has written both fiction and nonfiction, for adults and children. She has a passion for trees, walking and broader environmental issues, and every day she posts an image of a tree on her Instagram @sophtreeofday. A stalwart of the Australian literary scene, Sophie also works as a writing teacher and was a co-founder of The Stella Prize, former editor of Meanjin, and former chair of the Literature Board of the Australia Council. She lives in Melbourne. 

Review :
‘This Devastating Fever is remarkable: a thrillingly original, deeply emotional exploration of the complex echoes of history set in the shadow of the looming catastrophe of the future. Sinuous, strange, utterly compelling, it is like no other book you’ll read this year.’ ‘Brilliant and unlike anything I’ve ever read before. It draws on archived letters and diary entries and the edges of what is real and what is imagined are delightfully blurred. It’s sharply layered, clever and darkly, dryly hilarious.’ ‘A book of big ideas that reads as a page turner. I was thrilled to keep returning to the page.’ ‘This Devastating Fever contains the joy and pain and terror of caring deeply for another living thing: whether a loved one whose mind is failing, or cicadas destined to be incinerated in the Black Summer fires. It is also about the need to read carefully, write carefully, and think carefully – about the past and how we respond to it, and about what we owe the dead, the living, and the future.’ ‘This Devastating Fever feels a bit like a blast from the past and in the best way possible.’ ‘I can honestly say this isn’t like any book I have ever read before, yet couldn’t put down.’ ‘This Devastating Fever is an extraordinary achievement.’