Demons

They were going to tell stories. Let's go away for the weekend, said Megan, and leave our phones behind and turn off the computers and television and stop time because time is moving too fast and soon we'll all be saying where the hell did our lives go? We'll cook some food and drink some wine and each tell a story.

It is the middle of winter. Seven friends travel to a remote coastal beach house for the weekend. Without phones, internet or television, they sit around the fireplace, telling stories – each exposing the foibles of humankind. But as a storm rolls in and torrential rain cuts the party off from the outside world, it soon becomes clear that some secrets are best kept hidden.

Demons is an extraordinary novel by one of Australia's great writers.

Read Caroline Baum's Review

Wayne Macauley’s new novel has a deceptively simple set up: a group of seven friends leave their everyday lives behind to gather at a beach house and tell stories over wine and food. Sounds a bit like The Big Chill without the funeral, doesn’t it?

Middle class, middle-aged professionals, they bring along the baggage you would expect of marital tension, professional disappointment, substance addiction and predictable insecurities with them. The stories they tell as the weather rages outside cutting them off from the outside world expose their foibles and folly. But are they telling the truth or are they covering up other, more shameful secrets to distract each other from what is really going on?

Macauley treads a delicate line in his deft handling of his characters and their revealing tales, never overplaying his hand. Instead he drops in casual giveaway details, as the unease inside the house matches the increasingly fierce weather outside. There is an unshowy finesse to the way each story exposes and reveals something about the storyteller as the narrative builds to a stormy climax.

About the Author

Wayne Macauley is the author of the highly acclaimed novels: Blueprints for a Barbed-Wire Canoe, Caravan Story and, most recently, The Cook, which was shortlisted for the Western Australian Premier's Book Award, a Victorian Premier's Literary Award and the Melbourne Prize Best Writing Award. His new book Demons will be available in August 2014. He lives in Melbourne.