234(Ht mm) 153(Wdt mm) 256

‘a gloriously distinctive writer: brava, brava!’— Michelle de Kretser, Miles Franklin award-winning author of The Life to Come and Theory & Practice

‘Cure lures you in with mesmeric prose then startles with profound insights on pain, faith, motherhood and, above all, love.’—Diana Reid, bestselling author of Love & Virtue and Signs of Damage

‘An utterly joyful reading experience. I inhaled it.’—Jessie Tu, bestelling author of A Lonely Girl is a Dangerous Thing and The Honeyeater

Her body hurts her all the time now. It is separate, a thing apart. In her mind it has become a person or an object that is not quite her, that she doesn’t know.

Vera and Thea are mother and daughter. Vera writes for the internet: she constructs identities and scenarios for brands to cater to the ideal consumer. Yet she also consumes the offerings of the online world herself: the addictive pursuit of a cure, the narratives she craves in which mother and daughter find a way out of the shared experience of chronic illness. She becomes preoccupied with a blog written by a woman named Claudia, a mother whose daughter also has a chronic illness.

While on holiday in Italy, Thea writes in her journal. She is also constructing a character: an image of herself as she grapples with having the same illness as her mother, Vera. But gradually another person emerges in her journal, through her imaginings of her mother in the same house, the same city, at the same age. They have come to Italy to see where Vera’s family originates, but also to chase a promised cure in the form of a man said to be able to heal Thea’s illness.

As they both grapple with their own narratives about their bodies and their wellness, all may not be as it seems.Perhaps a story does not necessarily need to be true for us to believe in it?

PRAISE FOR CURE:

‘Brabon’s elegant, poetic prose is transporting; she probes our human vulnerabilities with deep insight, empathy, and restraint. Cure is timely and entirely compelling.’—Sarah Holland-Batt, Stella Prize-winning author of The Jaguar

‘an eerie dream of a book.’—Madeleine Watts, author of The Inland Sea and Elegy, Southwest

‘A tender, delicately woven story that explores the boundaries between a mother and daughter who both live with chronic illness. Sharply intelligent and deeply felt, Cure has much to say about the unreliability of the body, the alienating nature of pain, and the cacophony of voices – scientific, religious, online – offering comfort, promising relief. An intimate and imaginative novel about family, faith, and the healing power of human connection.’—Kylie Needham, author of Girl in a Pink Dress

‘Accomplished, gentle and illuminating.’—Alice Bishop, author of A Constant Hum

‘Cure is a timely look at our preoccupation with wellness. Brabon's poetics around the body and female constructions of self and identity and myth are breathtaking.’—Kavita Bedford, author of Friends and Dark Shapes

 

Katherine Brabon is an award-winning writer from Naarm/Melbourne. Her first novel, The Memory Artist, won The Australian/Vogel’s Literary Award in 2016. It was shortlisted in the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards and longlisted in the Indie Book Awards. Her second novel, The Shut Ins, won the People’s Choice Award at the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards in 2022. It was shortlisted for the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction, and longlisted for the Voss Prize and the ALS Gold Medal.

Katherine’s third novel, Body Friend, was published in Australia and the UK by Ultimo Press, and in North America and Canada by Bloomsbury. It was shortlisted for the Stella Prize, the ALS Gold Medal and the University of Queensland Fiction Book Award.

  'I read it with pleasure and admiration. As with Body Friend, I was struck by the distilled wisdom of Katherine’s meditation on the power - and treachery - of the narratives we create. She’s a gloriously distinctive writer: brava, brava!'
  'Cure lures you in with mesmeric prose then startles with profound insights on pain, faith, motherhood and, above all, love.'

'Cure is a spectacular account of our desperate pursuit of happiness through good health, and the failure of that, the unreliability of our female bodies and the grief of this unreliability.

Brabon’s prose moves like a symphony, taking us through the singular transition from adolescence to womanhood — a transitory period, told in a quiet, elliptical tone. The novel explores our relationship between illness and identity with a sense of urgency and detachment, while charting the burden of daughterhood and the inextricable ties we have with our mothers. 

An utterly joyful reading experience. I inhaled it.'

'A delicate, atmospheric story about the spidery threads of connection between daughters and our mothers, the hazy space between one body and another, between sickness and health, surrender and control. Katherine Brabon has written an eerie dream of a book.' 'In this age of algorithmically-induced anxieties about our bodies, Katherine Brabon’s Cure asks profound questions about what it really means to seek a cure for illness—and to learn to accept our mortal condition. I was mesmerised by the meditative, dreamlike worlds of Vera and Thea, whose dual quests for wellness show us how the psychology of hope can be just as damaging as resignation or despair. Brabon’s elegant, poetic prose is transporting; she probes our human vulnerabilities with deep insight, empathy, and restraint. Cure is timely and entirely compelling.' 'Cure is a timely look at our preoccupation with wellness. Brabon's poetics around the body and female constructions of self and identity and myth are breathtaking. She writes with a cool elegance about what it means to be well; that it is somehow within our reach and control, and how if it cannot be attained, it feels like a failure of self. An eerie and compelling read.'