2021 MILES FRANKLIN WINNER.

It is always the way. The winner of the 2021 Miles Franklin Award is "THE LABYRINTH" by Amanda Lohrey. I did not get to this novel, but will be checking it out as soon as I can. Here is a synopsis and biography of novel and author. I have also included a video clip of Lohrey talking about her previous novels.

Erica Marsden’s son, an artist, has been imprisoned for a monstrous act of revenge. Trapped in her grief, Erica retreats from Sydney to a sleepy hamlet on the south coast, near where Daniel is serving his sentence.

There, in a rundown shack by the ocean, she obsesses over building a labyrinth. To create it—to navigate the path through her quandary—Erica will need the help of strangers. And that will require her to trust, and to reckon with her past.

The Labyrinth is a story of guilt and denial, of the fraught relationship between parents and children. It is also an examination of how art can be ruthlessly destructive, and restorative. Mesmerising yet disquieting, it shows Amanda Lohrey to be at the peak of her powers.

Amanda Lohrey is a novelist and essayist. She was educated at the University of Tasmania and Cambridge. She lectured in Writing and Textual Studies at the Sydney University of Technology (1988-1994), and since 2002 at the School of English, Media Studies and Art History at the University of Queensland in Brisbane.