Emily Bitto’s debut novel was originally published in Australia in 2014 and subsequently won the Stella Prize, Australia’s highest honor for a work of fiction or nonfiction written by a female author. Lucky for us, Twelve is now publishing THE STRAYS in the United States. The book is certainly Australian in its setting (Melbourne and its suburbs) and topic (it’s loosely based on the professional and often scandalous personal lives of the Heide Circle, a group of Australian modernist artists in the first half of the 20th century), but its themes and characters provide universal resonance.

"THE STRAYS is a thoughtful exploration of what happens when artistic genius and family life collide, and how a relatively short period in one’s youth can shape personal and professional choices for a lifetime."

At the center of the novel is Lily, a young girl for most of the story. She develops an intense friendship with Eva, the middle daughter of Helena and Evan Trentham. Evan is a charismatic and undeniably talented painter, almost frightening to Lily in his intensity and disregard for social norms. But only child Lily is enchanted by the Trenthams’ bohemian lifestyle, so very different from her own more conventional family. She begins spending more and more time at the Trenthams’ home, especially after her father is injured in an industrial accident, and soon starts imagining that she is part of their family.

Lily is also an observer, jotting down her thoughts about the Trenthams and, especially, the young artistic “strays” who make up their circle and who also find their way to the Trentham home. Some she idolizes, others she merely admires. But when a scandal threatens to rip apart not only the Trentham family but also the artistic movement and utopia that Evan and Helena have created, Lily realizes that everything she thought she knew and trusted --- including her friendship with Eva --- might be an illusion after all.

In THE STRAYS, Bitto imagines a fragile utopian community whose members are united by their shared belief in a new kind of anti-establishment art form, but whose personal failures soon illustrate art’s shortcomings as a panacea for human frailty. Meanwhile, the young people --- Lily, Eva and her sisters, especially fragile and volatile younger sister Heloise --- do their best to thrive despite the confusing atmosphere of neglect, sexual transgression and artistic production that surrounds them.

If Bitto’s novel has a weakness, it would be the final sections. The reader is brought to the mid-1980s and to a retrospective exhibition of Evan’s artwork, which serves as the impetus to reunite several of the characters following the events that pulled them apart decades earlier. These scenes are largely anticlimactic, memorable largely for their opportunity to reflect on Lily’s relationship with her own adult daughter and on female friendships in general. Still, these sections do not really detract from the intensity of what transpired before.

As a whole, then, THE STRAYS is a thoughtful exploration of what happens when artistic genius and family life collide, and how a relatively short period in one’s youth can shape personal and professional choices for a lifetime.