The Life of Houses explores, with a poet's eye for detail, the hidden tensions in one of Australia's establishment families. These tensions come to the surface during a week in summer when Kit's recently divorced mother sends her away to stay with her estranged grandparents, and her unmarried aunt who cares for them, in their old and decaying house by the sea.
The Life of Houses was named co-winner of the Prime Ministers Award for Fiction—a novel exploring the relationship between mothers, daughters and the coming of age.
