When author Kris Kneen releases another book into the world, you are guaranteed of evocative, atmospheric, literary writing. The variables are genre – they write in fiction, non-fiction, poetry and memoir. And if as with their latest novel, RITE OF SPRING (Transit Lounge 2026), it is book of fiction, you can never be sure if it will be realist, thrilling, meditative or mystical. Kneen can take any story and transform it into something wonderful.
It would be tempting to say RITE OF SPRING is about a couple recovering from the aftermath of a terrible accident and a cruel betrayal, or you could describe it as invoking mermaids, mermen, mercreatures and seeing them through a lens of understanding. It could be a book about two people who take on the six-month role of caretakers for an isolated lighthouse in a remote Tasmanian island, or you could describe it as people from the past whispering secrets and lessons to those who come after. RITE OF SPRING is about erotic, exotic and sensual sex; changing bodies; menopause; loyalty and betrayal; survival in harsh places; self-identity and self-discovery and self-pleasure; danger, risk, choices and vows. The novel is about all this and more, a glorious, luminous, overwhelming, tense, beguiling, bewildering, defiant triumph.
But perhaps the central theme of this novel is transformation, gender identity and the generous capacity of those in liminal spaces to recognise and welcome others, and to place no limits on the imagination regarding who and what we might witness in the world, if only we open our eyes to seeing, our ears to listening, our bodies to pleasure and our hearts to loving.
As Miranda recovers from a life-changing diving accident, and Richard earns back her trust after an affair, the couple have much in common but also, as becomes obvious on the isolated island, many differences which perhaps cannot be reconciled. Adventure, stability, capability, open-mindedness, tenderness, desire, satisfaction, ambition, discovery, bodily image and intimacy; all are traversed through this story set in and around the primordial depths of the ocean and the boundaries of the psychological self. It is very much Kneen’s message to themself: questions, explorations, answers, calls, songs, attractions and signs of belonging. Once again, Kneen offers a gift of stunning writing, an engrossing story, intriguing characters (both human and not) and the boundless enthusiasm for peeling back layers of skin to find what lies beneath and what connects us.