de Kretser, Michelle

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de KRETSER, Michelle

PERSONAL: Born in Sri Lanka; immigrated to Australia at age fourteen and became a naturalized Australian citizen. Education: Studied French at Melbourne University, earned M.A. in Paris.

ADDRESSES: Home—Melbourne, Australia. Agent—c/o Author Mail, Random House, 201 East 50th St., New York, NY 10022.

CAREER: Freelance editor and writer. Taught for one year in Montpellier, France and worked for many years as an editor for a Melbourne publishing house.

WRITINGS:

(Editor) Brief Encounters: Stories of Love, Sex, and Travel, Lonely Planet (Oakland, CA), 1998.

The Rose Grower (historical novel), Random (New York, NY), 1999.

SIDELIGHTS: Michelle de Kretser is an Australia-based writer whose first book, Brief Encounters: Stories of Love, Sex, and Travel, features various writers' tales, all of which reveal the romantic, and sometimes erotic, nature of travel. De Kretser features a variety of writers—including Pico Iyer, Lisa St. Aubin de Teran, Mona Simpson, and Paul Theroux—and their stories evoke settings that range from a Mexican bathhouse to a Greek ferry. Anthony Sattin, in a London Sunday Times review, deemed Brief Encounters "a mixed bag," but added that the book contained "several excellent [previously unpublished] stories." Another reviewer, Helen Rumbelow, in the London Times, wrote that Brief Encounters acknowledged a "truism about travel: it is to have an anonymous but passionate fling while getting there," and described the book as "an absorbing read."

In de Kretser's novel, The Rose Grower, an American balloonist finds love and danger with a pair of sisters in Gascony, during the French Revolution. Booklist reviewer Margaret Flanagan called The Rose Grower "a mesmerizing debut novel" and added that it "builds quietly and elegantly toward an inevitably tragic climax." Quadrant critic Francesca Beddie, meanwhile, called this Australian novel about the French Revoluation "refreshing." Critic Thomas Wright, however, noted in the London Daily Telegraph that the novel "fails to evoke the flavour of the 1790s, offering the reader instead a kind of historical limbo which is neither wholly of the present nor of the past." Similarly, Rishi Dastidar, in the London Times, wrote that de Kretser proves "unable to create a satisfactory balance between the action and the horticulture." A Publishers Weekly reviewer concluded that de Kretser's "characters never really come to life," but Joanne Harris, writing in the New York Times Book Review, called the novel "a lovely, meticulously researched first novel that evokes the beginnings of the Terror in crisp, elegant, compassionate prose." Margaret Gunning, in a January review, described de Kretser's writing as "heartbreakingly beautiful," and Ruth Gorb, in the London Guardian, wrote that The Rose Garden is "beautifully written, full of wit and pathos and evocative images." Although Gorb noted that the novel "lacks unity," she added that "there is a great deal to enjoy in the book" and concluded her review by acknowledging that "de Kretser's final pages are a triumph, quietly moving."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, June 1, 2000, Margaret Flanagan, review of The Rose Grower, p. 1852.

Guardian (London), November 6, 1999, Ruth Gorb, review of The Rose Grower, p. 10.

Library Journal, April 15, 2000, Andrea Lee Shuey, review of The Rose Grower, p. 122.

Daily Telegraph (London), November 13, 1999, Thomas Wright, review of The Rose Grower.

New York Times Book Review, August 27, 2000, Joanne Harris, "Pruning Season," p. 25.

Publishers Weekly, April 3, 2000, review of The Rose Grower, p. 60.

Quadrant, December, 1999, Francesca Beddie, review of The Rose Grower, p. 82.

Times (London, England), October 10, 1998, Helen Rumbelow, review of Brief Encounters: Stories of Love, Sex, and Travel, p. 22; October 30, 1999, Rishi Dastidar, review of The Rose Grower, p. 23.

Sunday Times (London), May 31, 1998, Anthony Sattin, review of Brief Encounters: Stories of Love, Sex, and Travel, p. 2.