Evening-With-The-Messiah

Penguin Books Australia,
1996 – out of print

Available from
Amazon

Maestro Leo Woods captivates all who come in contact with him: his alcoholic friend Stuart; retired chorister Dorothy; doting students Daphne and Fiona; even the strangely opaque but gorgeous Jamie, who falls in love with Leo’s daughter. In fact, Leo’s entire family generates an intoxicating allure. But sometimes devotion can be a destructive thing . . .

‘ . . . a sparkling white comedy, tolerant, mature and benign, and it deserves to
be widely read, not least because it is funny.’

The Sydney Morning Herald

‘As an eloquent storyteller, as queen of the narrative drive, Catherine Jinks is filling a void in Australian literature. Like Joanna Trollope and Mary Wesley she finds drama in the complicated lives of modern families.’
The Sunday Age

‘This is a rare and enormously refreshing book. It is unpretentiously light, but it is also beautifully observed, cunningly constructed . . . and written with wit, style and great assurance.’
Australian Book Review

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‘What a joy. A contemporary Australian novel so artful it soars like the highest notes of Handel’s Messiah. Catherine Jinks has a mastery of dialogue and understanding of human behaviour that puts her in company with writers like America’s Ann Tyler or, in Britain, Anita Brookner.’
Adelaide Advertiser

‘ . . . a novel that succeeds, as do the early novels of Kingsley Amis, in being both lighthearted and profound, moving the reader alternately to sadness and to mirth.’
Who Weekly

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