The Healing Party

Evocative, taut and wryly funny, this stunning novel is about faith and lies, the spirit and the flesh

Estranged from her family, Natasha is making a life for herself in Darwin when her sister calls with bad news. Their mother is ill, with only a few months to live. Confused and conflicted, Natasha returns home. But her father, an evangelical Christian, is still the domineering yet magnetic man she ran from, and her sisters and mother are still in his thrall.

One night her father makes an astonishing announcement — he has received a message from God that his wife is to be healed, and they must hold a party to celebrate. As Natasha and her sisters prepare for the big event — and the miracle — she struggles to reconcile her family's faith with her sense that they are pretending. Is she a traitor or the only one who can see the truth? And what use is truth anyway, in the face of death?

Taut, funny and poignant, The Healing Party is an electrifying debut novel about faith and lies, the spirit and the flesh.

'The Healing Party succeeds in the aim all novels share — it suggests new ways of seeing.' —The Monthly

ISBN: 9781760644857 | Published: 8 August 2023 (first published 2016) | Trade paperback | 304 pages