Cold Light by Frank Moorhouse

JUDGES' COMMENTS

Cold Light completes Frank Moorhouse’s epic trilogy about Edith Campbell Berry, an Australian woman who has worked in Europe for the League of Nations and lived in a sexually unconventional relationship with her husband, Ambrose. In this volume Edith and Ambrose return to Australia in 1950 and she becomes involved in the construction of Canberra as the nation’s capital and in Cold War politics.

Moorhouse’s grand achievement is in sustaining his historically accurate and lively depiction of post-war Australian politics and social-sexual mores. In particular, he continues to develop the complex, appealing character of Edith in her shifting public and private lives. The challenge of a 700-page novel is lightened by Moorhouse’s eye for revealing detail and his poised third-person narration, which takes us credibly inside the life of a twentieth-century woman.