Thunderhead

A black comedy, set in suburbia, about one woman's struggle to be free.

When Winona Dalloway begins her day - in the peaceful early hours before her children, that 'tiny tornado of little hands and feet', wake up - she doesn't know that by the end of it, everything in her world will have changed.

On the outside, Winona is a seemingly unremarkable young mother- unobtrusive, quietly going about her tasks. But within is a vivid, chaotic self, teeming with voices - a mind both wild and precise.

And meanwhile, a storm is brewing ...

'Thunderhead is edgy black comedy and sports real-time internal monologue meticulously describing one day of domestic purgatory ... Darling's whip-smart short novel creates a strong narrative voice spiked with caustic wit, intertextual reference, and intelligent humour. It's formidably brilliant feminist fiction that sparks a compelling conversation with its literary forebears, Woolf in particular.'
-Cameron Woodhead, The Sydney Morning Herald

'Set over one fever-pitched day ... It's a daring book, adopting the aesthetics of Deborah Levy with the velocity of a crime thriller and an off- kilter voice, deeply internal, darkly comic, clipped and Woolf-ish ... Thunderhead brims with magazine- style musings - all those dizzying top notes, that intertextuality, the style. It's a strong, complex and self-aware voice, and it is the primary vehicle through which we gauge Winona's resilience and determination. If The Catcher in the Rye were instead penned by a domestic violence survivor, it might read a little like Thunderhead. For fans of Melissa Broder, Elizabeth Hardwick and Edwina Preston.'
-Mel Fulton, Books+Publishing

'A feminist triumph and homage to Virginia Woolf, Miranda Darling's Thunderhead is a potent exploration of suburban entrapment for women.'
-Cassandra Atherton, Australian Book Review