Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Australian Novelist 2022
Winner MUD Literary Prize
Shortlisted ABA Booksellers Choice Award for Fiction
Shortlisted Indie Book Award for Debut Fiction
Longlisted ABIA Award for Literary Fiction
Longlisted ABIA Matt Richell Award New Writer of the Year
Sex. Power. Consent.
Whenever I say I was at university with Eve, people ask me what she was like, sceptical perhaps that she could have always been as whole and self-assured as she now appears. To which I say something like: ‘People are infinitely complex.’ But I say it in such a way—so pregnant with misanthropy that it’s obvious I hate her.
Michaela and Eve are two bright, bold women who befriend each other their first year at a residential college at university, where they live in adjacent rooms. They could not be more different; one assured and popular – the other uncertain and eager-to-please. But something happens one night in O-week – a drunken encounter, a foggy memory that will force them to confront the realities of consent and wrestle with the dynamics of power.
Initially bonded by their wit and sharp eye for the colleges’ mix of material wealth and moral poverty, Michaela and Eve soon discover how fragile friendship is, and how capable of betrayal they both are.
About the Author
Diana Reid is a Sydney-based writer, who graduated from the University of Sydney last year with a Bachelor of Arts (First Class Hons Philosophy)/Laws. In January 2020, her career in theatre was off to a promising start: the musical she co-wrote and produced, 1984! The Musical!, debuted and she was set to direct and write theatre performances around the country and over to the Edinburgh Fringe. When COVID-19 saw the cancellation of global theatre, she decided she'd spend her time in shutdown writing a manuscript. Love & Virtue , her debut novel, was shortlisted for the Indie Awards and the ABA Booksellers Choice Award, longlisted for two ABIA Awards and was the winner of the 2022 MUD Literary Prize.
Diana is also a Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Novelist for 2022. Her second novel, Seeing Other People, will publish in October 2022.
Industry Reviews
'an absolute cracker, Love & Virtue lobs right into the current moment with a clarifying light. I hope EVERYONE reads this book.' * Helen Garner *
'I have been chewing on this book for days now. Compelling reading. So well written. Complex. I keep turning it over in my mind and I want to talk about it!' * Hannah Kent *
'An extraordinary new voice in Aussie lit.' * Zoe Foster Blake *
'Loved it...It's electrifying' * Annabel Crabb *
'Love and Virtue is an accomplished novel - by turns funny and furious, and full of the plangent longing and confusion of early adulthood.' -- Fiona Wright * The Saturday Paper *
'Love & Virtue is a formidable debut novel. The writing is punchy and clever, with characters so deeply drawn that they feel like friends and enemies from a former life.' -- Zoya Patel * The Guardian Australia *
'I inhaled it...an amazing book' * Mia Freedman *
'Reid writes with ferocity and intelligence, and this novel demands attention and commands respect.' -- Anna Carew-Reid * Sunday Times Magazine *
'Unputdownable, her rich and resplendent detail distils the Australian campus experience with cutting insight, ultimately leading the audience to contemplate its trenchant central question: are you a good person, or do you just look like one?' -- Noah Vaz * Law Society Journal *
'Fans of Sally Rooney will gravitate to this compelling read that centres on feminism, power and sex in the lives of Australian university students.' -- Maggie Zhou * Refinery 29 Australia *
'Reid is a young author to watch.' * Marie Claire *
'Love and Virtue captures the near-erotic thrill of being a young woman, alone and adrift, who finds, in another young woman, an intellectual equal ... Like Elena and Lila in Elena Ferrante's My Brilliant Friend, a touchstone for Reid, their spark feels charged, given to exploding.' -- Neha Kale * Sydney Morning Herald *
'wonderfully readable prose, offering a nuanced and often very funny portrait of privilege and betrayal that probes complex questions about consent, trust and what it means to be a truly "good" person.'
-- Gemma Nisbet * The West Australian *
'The prose crackles fiercely, luring readers in with phrases to mull over and taste before devouring the next delicious sentence.' -- Annabel Harz * Artshub *