Showing results by author "Amanda Lohrey" in All Categories

From the Hillsong Church to the Family First Party, Australia appears to be experiencing an evangelical revival. In the second Quarterly Essay for 2006, Amanda Lohrey investigates that revival - its shape and scope, and what it means for the mainstream churches and the nation's politics. She talks to young believers and analyses the machinations of the Christian Right. She discusses, with humour and insight, the appeal of the megachurch, the changing image of Jesus and the political theories of George Pell and Peter Jensen.

The Singing Cure takes the listener on a thought-provoking and inspiring journey to unlock the secret of the human voice. Amanda Lohrey succeeds in drawing together many threads in this seamless and compelling narrative, which shows her to be a master prose writer at the height of her powers.

Erica Marsden’s son, an artist, has been imprisoned for homicidal negligence. In a state of grief, Erica cuts off all ties to family and friends, and retreats to a quiet hamlet on the south-east coast near the prison where he is serving his sentence. There, in a rundown shack, she obsesses over creating a labyrinth by the ocean. To build it - to find a way out of her quandary - Erica will need the help of strangers. And that will require her to trust and to reckon with her past.

James Mather is a psychiatrist in his 60s. He is invited to take on a new group of patients. All he knows about them is that each one claims to have been abducted by aliens. His wife, Deborah, is skeptical, but he gets going anyway. His patients tell mesmerizing stories. There's Anthony, for instance, who was camping one night by the Aral Sea; or Mary, the owner of a beauty salon, confronted by a ball of light moving towards her in her bedroom. James's research assistant Lucy Cheng sits in on each session.

Luke and Anna, 30-something and restless, decide on a sea change. Worn down by city life and wounded by a loss neither can talk about, they flee to a sleepy village by the coast. There, surrounded by nature, they begin to feel rejuvenated. But when bushfire threatens their new home, they must confront what they have tried to put behind them. Vertigo is a fable of love and awakening by one of Australia's finest writers, about the unexpected way emotions can return and life can change.

Nick – so persuasive, ever the optimist, still boyishly handsome. Always on a quest to design the perfect environment, convinced it could heal a wounded soul. The conversion was Nick's idea, but it's Zoe who's here now, in a valley of old coalmines and new vineyards, working out how to live in a deconsecrated church. What to do with all that vertical space, those oppressive stained-glass windows? Can a church become a home or, even with all its vestiges removed, will it remain forever what it was intended to be?