Fauna

I wasn’t going to read this book. I judged it by its cover and figured I didn’t need to read another book about motherhood. But we were in lockdown and I wanted to support local writers, so I bought a copy. Donna Mazza’s story has an astonishing premise. It’s about motherhood, but what if you are going to be the mother of a child that is not entirely human?

The mother, Stacey, and her husband are participants in a genetics programme that will give them another child but binds them to a contract that she is unwilling to fulfil as she bonds with her daughter. Set in the near future, her story speculates on technology and ethics and our human pull to protect and nurture. It is a tense book to read, with doom hanging over every chapter. I loved it. Go get a copy and have a read yourself.

Donna Mazza is a Western Australian writer based in the south west. She won the TAG Hungerford Award in 2005 for her first novel, The Albanian. I’m looking forward to what she does next.