Fiction

Something in the air

Item: The Airways
Author: Amy Baillieu

A haunted puzzle of a novel

by Amy Baillieu •

September 2021, no. 435

The Airways by Jennifer Mills

Picador, $32.99 pb, 370 pp

Fiction

Something in the air

A haunted puzzle of a novel

by Amy Baillieu •

September 2021, no. 435

There is something, or rather someone, in the air in Jennifer Mills’s dark fourth novel. The Airways represents another leap towards the uncanny for Mills, whose previous book, the Miles Franklin-shortlisted Dyschronia (2018), was already a departure from the more traditionally realist modes of her earlier novels, The Diamond Anchor (2009) and Gone (2011), and short story collection, The Rest Is Weight (2012).

Amy Baillieu

Amy Baillieu is Deputy Editor of Australian Book Review. She completed a Masters of Publishing and Communications at the University of Melbourne in 2011 and holds a Bachelor of Arts from the same university with majors in English Literature and French. Prior to becoming Deputy Editor of ABR in 2012, she worked in other editorial roles at the magazine and was Philanthropy Manager from 2011–12. Amy chaired the ABR Elizabeth Jolley Short Story Prize judging panel from 2014–17. She regularly reviews fiction for ABR and also works as a freelance editor.