Chosen Family by Madeleine Gray examines a fraught relationship between two women

Australian author Madeleine Gray's new novel Chosen Family follows two women who meet as schoolgirls in Sydney and charts a complicated, life-changing relationship between them. Gray's narrative moves back and forth from the 00s to the present day; as in David Nicholls's One Day, we learn about the protagonists by meeting them at different moments in their lives, from high school through university to early parenthood.

The book opens by telling readers that, although Nell and Eve have a young daughter they coparent, Nell is no longer around, and her mysterious absence keeps the story invested: "What went wrong? Who betrayed whom? And can it be fixed?" When they first meet, Nell is a lonely child with wealthy parents and Eve is a new girl with a flaky single mother; they become devoted allies but Nell cuts Eve loose after rumours that Eve is a "lez".

The review says Gray evokes the horrors of school perfectly: "there is something almost sublime about the cruelty of preteen girls; the absolute acid of it". Without Nell, Eve becomes a solitary "ghost", but at university she begins to come back to life, making new friends (the scene-stealing Marcus and Tae), Googling "how to look even gayer" and testing her new identity by asking if buying another woman a drink is "patriarchal".

When Nell returns, subdued and apologetic, their tentative reunion raises questions about whether they are friends or something more.

Key Topics

Culture, Madeleine Gray, Chosen Family, Sydney, Nell, Eve