Maybe the Horse Will Talk

Elliot Perlman’s novel Three Dollars won the Age Book of the Year Award, the Betty Trask Award (UK), and the Fellowship of Australian Writers’ Book of the Year Award. It was also shortlisted for the John Llewellyn-Rhys/Mail On Sunday Book of the Year Award (UK) and the Miles Franklin Literary Award. Perlman co-wrote the screenplay for the film adaptation of Three Dollars, which received the Australian Film Critics’ Circle Award for Best Adapted Screenplay and the A.F.I. Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.

His collection of stories, The Reasons I Won’t Be Coming, was a bestseller in the US, named a New York Times Book Review ‘Editors’ Choice’, and received the Steele Rudd Award for the best Australian short story collection.

Perlman’s second novel, Seven Types of Ambiguity, was a bestseller in France, where it was hailed as “one of the best novels of recent years, a complete success” by Le Monde. In Germany, it was called a “literary sensation” by Deutschlandradio, and Der Spiegel described it as “an impressive, iridescent all-encompassing view of feeling.” Süddeutsche Zeitung deemed it to have “the virtues of the great modern European novel.” The novel was also a bestseller in the United States, where The New York Times noted “traces of Dickens’s range and of George Eliot’s generous humanist spirit.” It was named a New York Times Book Review ‘Editors’ Choice’ and a ‘Notable Book of the Year’, and a Washington Post ‘Editors’ Choice’ and one of its all-time dozen favorites “on the pain of love.” In the UK, The Observer called it “a colossal achievement….a tour de force….(in which) at the end, in a comprehensive, an almost Shakespearian way, Perlman picks up every loose thread and knots it,” and the Sunday Telegraph named it a ‘Book of the Year’. In Australia, it was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award and the Queensland Premier’s Award for Fiction.

Perlman’s bestselling novel The Street Sweeper was described as “Excellent … harrowing, humane and brilliant” by The Times (UK) and a “towering achievement: a strikingly modern literary novel” by Entertainment Weekly (US). It is an epic tale spanning decades and generations, chronicling racial persecution during the twentieth century and shedding new light on the American civil rights movement. The San Francisco Chronicle praised its “breathtaking” narrative pull and Perlman’s “supreme feat of articulating the unspeakable,” calling it a “stunning novel” that captures both the “agonized howl of the past and the plaintive echoes of the present” with rare erudition and compassion. The Washington Post lauded it as a “wonderfully rich, engaging and multilayered story.” Publishers Weekly gave it a starred review, noting that Perlman “brilliantly makes personal both the Holocaust and the civil rights movement, and crafts a moving and literate page-turner.” The Jerusalem Post stated that “Perlman burnishes his reputation as a masterful storyteller who captures the cadences of consciousness and conversation and the varieties and vagaries of cruelty, courage and compassion. You will, in all likelihood, find it unforgettable.”

Elliot Perlman’s first children’s novel, The Adventures of Catvinkle, is an “instant children’s classic” that adults also enjoy and is a perfect gift for its “inherent, feel-good message,” according to the Sunday Age. Books+Publishing called it “a charming and whimsical tale… replete with gentle lessons… about empathy, bravery and friendship… a simply delightful and easy-to-read story with laugh-out-loud dialogue that doesn’t talk down to its readers.” The Sydney Morning Herald stated it is “exactly the sort of book I loved being given as a child, a book you can cherish.” Magpies noted its gentle treatment of themes like “social inclusion, anti-racism and anti-bullying” with “quirky, humorous moments.” Better Reading described it as “A gorgeous book guaranteed to give great joy.” The Adventures of Catvinkle was a Children’s Book Council of Australia Notable Book 2019 and was shortlisted for the 2019 Children’s Peace Literature Award.

Perlman’s novel Maybe the Horse Will Talk is a “thriller-like, stylish, compelling novel” that “manages at once to limn injustices wrought by corporate acquisitiveness, misogyny and discrimination, and to affirm the transformative capacity of empathy,” according to the Weekend Australian. While possessing a “deep and steady seriousness,” it is also “funny as well as exhilarating and humane, pitching longing, love and kindness hopefully and inspiringly against violence.” The Sydney Morning Herald called it “A timely look at sexual harassment and corporate corruption that manages to be laugh-out-loud funny.” The Saturday Age highlighted the novelist’s “mastery of the sentence… in the rapid-fire dialogue between his characters,” adding that while the novel may stand apart for its intention to make readers smile, it continues the author’s interest in addressing social concerns through fiction.

Elliot Perlman is the recipient of the Queensland Premier’s award for Advancing Public Debate. He has been described by the Times Literary Supplement (UK) as “Australia’s outstanding social novelist,” by Le Nouvel Observateur (France) as the “Zola d’Australie,” and by Lire (France) as “the classic of tomorrow,” one of the “50 most important writers in the world.”

Catvinkle and the Missing Tulips, a children’s novel and sequel to The Adventures of Catvinkle, is scheduled for publication in October 2020.

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