An Astronaut’s Life
Sonja Dechian
In sparkling prose, Sonja Dechian’s profound, moving and wry stories speak to our deepest yearning for connection and the inevitability of our isolation.
From a terrorist cell of cyber-bullying victims working to annihilate the digital memory of their humiliation to a pandemic that leaves grieving parents battling for the media spotlight, these affecting tales invite us to examine our inability to control the world around us—and our own desires.
An Astronaut’s Life is a beautiful debut from an intelligent new voice in Australian writing.
STORIES IN THIS COLLECTION
After Francis Crick
The Race
Charles Darwin’s Revenge
The Architect
Nights at the House
The Falling
The Foreman
Incurable
An Astronaut’s Life
INTERVIEWS
Text’s Number 3 chiller blog
ABC RN Books & Arts
REVIEWS
andAn Astronaut’s Life
‘Head-spinning, sometimes spine-tingling. Every story here is a strange and remarkable gem.’
‘By the final page I was fully immersed in the book’s world—one both fantastical and eerily similar to real life. I wished I could have stayed longer.’
‘[It’s] great reading the work of such an inventive writer, and I’m incredibly interested to see where she takes us next.’
‘[Dechian’s] best stories have a sustained voice, simple and nimble…The places she takes you turn out to be well worth the time.’
‘An Astronaut’s Life announces the arrival of a deeply original voice.’
‘These stories don’t contain all the answers to the questions they pose, but they illuminate the ways humans adapt or otherwise to life’s challenges—both big and seemingly extreme, as well as small, domestic, and apparently insignificant. Dechian has a light touch so that while her writing is intelligent it is never dense, and An Astronaut’s Life is the salve for anyone who thinks plot-driven literary fiction is an oxymoron.’
‘[An Astronaut’s Life] is a well-written book by an accomplished author who skillfully manages to draw you completely into the lives of the people she is writing about.’
‘An Astronaut’s Life is sharp, innovative, and remarkably sure-footed.’
