The Australian by Emma Smith-Stevens (paperback)

PRAISE FOR THE AUSTRALIAN

"Smith-Stevens' evocation of alienation is often profound and her prose is always beautiful..."
—Kirkus Review

"A mesmerizing debut... Readers are treated to a captivating and memorable journey." 

--Publishers Weekly, starred review

“One of the funniest (and smartest) debuts I have read in years.”
—Largehearted Boy

"The Australian is an astute, often satirical look at self-actualization and what it means to be a man, partner, father and son. Smith-Stevens writes in a marvelously voyeuristic style.... The nameless man, both hero and no-hoper, is a poignant and pointed reflection of the imperfections that vex us all."
—Shelf Awareness

"A kind of picaresque novel, one that is charming, affecting, and funny in equal measure...a thoughtful meditation on masculinity, identity, and making a space for yourself in the world." 
—Black Warrior Review

“A hilarious debut novel about a smiling, suntanned, backpack-wearing Australian (you know the type) and his search for meaning.” 
—Fiction Advocate

“The Australian by Emma Smith-Stevens proves that the picaresque will never die, not as long as there are characters like her titular, never-named fellow…Smith-Stevens keeps the irony coming even in the tenderest moments.” 
—Lit Hub

“It's startling to finish The Australian and remember that this is a first novel: It's so wry, clever, swift, and assured that the reader senses immediately that she's in skilled and sympathetic hands. What a seductive voice; what a smart and charming book! And, most of all, what a wonderful new writer we have in Emma Smith-Stevens.”
—Lauren Groff, author of Fates and Furies

“Emma Smith-Stevens unmans the titular Australian in The Australian with a quiet, wise, sure-footed humor that is seductive.”
—Padgett Powell, author of The Interrogative Mood

“There are some writers—and Emma Smith-Stevens happens to be one—who seem effortlessly able to fill the page with life. This chronicle of an extraordinarily ordinary seeker is all wit and wonder, so tolerant of human fallibility, so respectful of mystery and complexity, so disinclined to demarcate the heroic from the foolish. I admire this debut for its style and stance.”
—Chris Bachelder, author of The Throwback Special

"Smith-Stevens writes with such a brilliant sense of language and humor, with such intelligent mystery and disarming intimacy, that the reader is compelled to follow the Australian in his absurd and moving journey through a baffling world, always wondering what could possibly happen next, until the character ultimately reaches a kind of transcendence. The Australian is an audacious debut novel."
—Michael Kimball, Big Ray

 "Smith-Stevens' The Australian  is a picaresque for the twenty-first century - beguiling, funny, and inventive, intermittently sad and always beautiful."
—David Leavitt, The Two Hotel Francforts   

"The Australian is written so deftly, the exact right mixture of heartfelt and ridiculous, that I cannot count the number of times that a line from the novel absolutely floored me. Smith-Stevens lets absurdity do what it does best: to render the complexity of the world in such stark relief that it transforms you. This is a brilliant, beautiful debut—a contemporary Stoner or Speedboat."

--Kevin Wilson, Perfect Little World

"The Australian is a sui generis mutation of the coming of age story that, like its protagonist, defies any easy categorization. Fueled by Smith-Stevens's trenchant eye, rollicking humor, and ceaselessly churning imagination, the book sweeps us along, bearing us into topographies that feel at once recognizable and remote, equipped only with a compass set in defamiliarize mode. The Australian himself comes to feel palpably alive, rendered in sinew and flesh but also achieving a kind of mythic grandeur—as does this superb debut."
—Tim Horvath, Understories

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Emma Smith-Stevens’s writing has appeared in Subtropics, Conjunctions, Day One, Wigleaf, and many other publications. Her essay “The Sun” is included in Not That Bad: Dispatches From Rape Culture, an anthology published by Harper Perennial (Eds. Roxane Gay and Ashley C. Ford). She holds an MFA from the University of Florida and currently teaches fiction writing as part of the Bard Prison Initiative. She lives in Brooklyn, New York. This is her first novel.