Cold Light

Editorial Reviews

"Cold Light realises the remarkable ambition of the Edith Campbell Berry trilogy - to render the trauma and hope of the twentieth century through the life of a fearless Australian woman determined to leave her mark on the world. It is a grand, mature work of the imagination by an intellectually sophisticated author. Frank Moorhouse writes translucently to create a novel populated by complicated, plausible characters of depth and passion, a stage enriched by historical detail.
Edith Campbell Berry is a woman who has always made the political personal. Her return to Canberra in 1950 is tinged with disappointment and hope. Life is complicated - her brother is a Communist, her husband a cross-dressing English spy, her chances of a job limited by marriage, her mentors disappointing - her idealism is tempered.
Canberra becomes her obsession and she embraces it with the passion and vision we came to expect of her on the international stage earlier in the trilogy. Through her eyes the nation's capital becomes a visionary project. As events unfold around her Edith confronts the disappointments and setbacks of age with self-awareness, curiosity and an acute sense of the intersection of private and public life.
Frank Moorhouse has brought the intellectual richness and political tensions of post-war Australia to life in unexpected ways. In Cold Light he has created an enduring Australian character and captured a time that still resonates. Edith is complicated, and dreams big. She embodies the possibilities and limitations of her time, place and gender and is Moorhouse’s enduring gift to Australian literature." - Miles Franklin Award judges

"Moorhouse is especially good on the shining promise Canberra once offered. What is especially wonderful is that while so many books tackle single themes, it is life as art that takes the central place here, and many themes wrap around it. Cold Light is a deeply moving, and singular, achievement in our literature." - Delia Falconer, The Australian

"To write about one's country is like writing about one's family; a hazardous and unreliable business, criss-crossed with deep human reservoirs of love, protectiveness and shame. It is tempting for the voyager in such circumstances to protect himself with mockery or contempt, but you chose a different way; a harder way, and more vulnerable, and infinitely more precious. Thank you for doing it with such love and care, Frank.To write with fondness, rather than contempt, is something I learned from you, and I think it was a valuable lesson.
Edith is the sort of character with whom anyone would like to have dinner. She is clever, and principled, and foolish, and vain, and decisive, and fierce, and hopeless, and interested in shoes. We love her and that's that.
These three books - Grand Days, Dark Palace and Cold Light - are, together, an extraordinary piece of Australian cultural infrastructure, if you'll permit me the ugly expression. They are built from your hard work and your extraordinary natural gift, and the fact that you did not allow the abundance of the latter to excuse you from the rigours of the former.
Thank you, Frank." - Annabel Crabb, from Letter to Frank at the launch of Cold Light

"Moorhouse is writing about diplomacy in the political, social and personal spheres. The book is a delicious re-imagination of the period, populated by real-life characters such as Robert Menzies, Gough Whitlam, Harold Holt, Frank Hardy and Ian Turner, and Moorhouse's own characters." - Jason Steger, The Age

"Cold Light is a study in apparent contradictions. A character-driven novel that also features a city - Canberra - as one of its main characters. Storytelling on a grand scale that uses small details (like the significance of desk management) to speak volumes about its characters and setting. A novel that is joyful, devastating, deeply touching, wickedly funny - and smuggles in serious political messages with the entertainment.
But of course, life contains all these contradictions too. And that is, above all, what the Edith trilogy is: a nuanced portrait of changing times, as reflected through the life of one woman who lives it as fully as she knows how. With verve and dash and integrity.
In Edith Campbell Berry, Frank Moorhouse has arguably created one of the most complex and intriguing women in Australian fiction. It has been a pleasure knowing her." - Jo Case, The Book Show, ABC Radio National

"Like Edith, Cold Light is dutiful, brooding, witty and salacious - and indefatigable. It's Edith's story but Australia's too. And in its daunting scale and civic optimism, Moorhouse's completed trilogy is starting to look like a grand public monument of the kind Edith once imagined furnishing the national capital. It is a truly formidable literary achievement." - Thornton McCamis, The Sun Herald

"Cold Light is a bravura performance. It is a triumph. The sublime ending is among the most poignant and beautiful writing that Moorhouse has produced." - Patrick Allington, Adelaide Advertiser

"Spending time with Edith is such a privilege. I don't know if I have loved a book more, for a long time." - Alex Sloan, ABC Local Radio, Canberra

"This novel contains elements of such fundamental storytelling categories as romance, adventure and quest. In the scope and depth with which it explores both the era at the level of international relations and the workings of the inner life in all its tiny nuance and fleeting detail, this novel would be an extraordinary achievement on its own; as the third instalment of the massive project that is 'the Edith Trilogy', it may be unique in the history of Australian fiction." - Kerryn Goldsworthy, Australian Book Review

"Moorhouse's writing invites readers - no, it compels us - to think about life, the universe and everything, especially the political and gastronomic 'everything'.
The last pages of Cold Light have a dream-like quality to them, and they are amongst the most beautiful and poignant writing that Moorhouse has produced. These days the descriptions 'epic' and 'great' enjoy such indiscriminate use that I hesitate to invoke them here. Except that Moorhouse's 'Edith Trilogy' is a truly epic tale of twentieth-century international diplomacy, and Edith Campbell Berry is one of literature's great characters." - Patrick Allington, Readings Monthly