A couple sign up as lighthouse keepers on an isolated island off Tasmania. But Miranda is on the cusp of a transformation – and sex is everywhere
To describe Kris Kneen’s latest novel as “sexy” would be an understatement. The sensual, sometimes disturbing Rite of Spring redraws the limits of sex, desire and the body in bold new ways, and Kneen isn’t afraid to lean into the details.
The novel features only two human characters – Miranda and Richard, who have signed up for a six-month stint as lighthouse carers on a remote island off the coast of Tasmania. The pair hope to reignite their failing marriage away from civilisation, where Richard had been unfaithful with a woman whose spectre still haunts any intimacy between them. Miranda, a marine biologist, is also recovering from a diving accident that severed her connection to the ocean, the only place she’s felt truly herself.
She remembered her excitement in the days before a dive. And if anyone had asked her what she was looking for down there in the deep water, she would have stared out into the future with that same unfocussed expression.