‘[This] darkly comic novel is a biting, hilarious and original take on motherhood, suburbia and domesticity … Thunderhead will hit the mark for fans of novelists such as Melissa Broder, Miranda July and Jenny Offill plus, of course, Cusk herself.’
Melanie Kembrey, 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 Woolfish … 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
‘Short, sharp and immersive … Thunderhead is a powerful story that explores motherhood, mental health, our sense of self and our right to autonomy in the context of relentless, everyday domestic life. This is complex, layered and beautiful writing that invites readers to consider their own wild and chaotic inner worlds, and the ways in which negative relationships shape us.’
Danielle Bagnato, The Big Issue
‘[A] chillingly sophisticated novella … Thunderhead is an innovative, smartly hewn dissection of a mother’s mental load … Darling writes her story with a ferocious sensitivity … it all builds to a thunderous (pun intended) denouement that you’re unlikely to forget anytime soon.’
Bram Presser, A Book for Ants
‘Miranda Darling writes from the absolute edge and leads us atop a tightrope strung high between submission and freedom. This book is the loss of balance, the breathlessness before the fall. Sharp, complex, and painfully relatable, Thunderhead is a firecracker of a story that lives up to its title. Darling’s dry wit and stark prose swallowed me whole, and I know I’ll be ruminating over it for a while to come.’
Lucy Fleming, Readings
‘Darkly funny, astute, timely — Thunderhead’s protagonist insists on being heard, and we as readers feel compelled to listen. To care. Such a fresh and lovely voice, full of humour, insight, and energy. I loved Winona — and her story.’
Sofie Laguna, author of The Eye of the Sheep
‘Thunderhead takes the brewing storm of domesticity and cracks it open with incredible vulnerability, generosity, and humour. At once Rachel Cusk, at once Jenny Offill, and altogether entirely Miranda Darling, this powerful, restless, irresistible novel is essential reading.’
Laura Jean McKay, author of The Animals in That Country
‘In prose that’s intense, darkly funny and searingly astute, Darling successfully conveys the sense of entrapment, the frantic bargaining with fate and the ultimate powerlessness of a woman overwhelmed by a vicious man.’
Anne Green, Good Reading Magazine
‘Exquisitely wrought, Thunderhead exposes the deadness at the heart of the Australian dream.’
Antonella Gambotto-Burke, The Australian
‘In a burst of poetic and darkly humorous prose, Miranda Darling’s Thunderhead unleashes the turbulent interior life of its protagonist, Winona Dalloway, onto the page … Like Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway, her stream-of-consciousness narration immerses us in the present and past and back again, over the course of one day … Thunderhead, a brilliant work of feminist fiction with its superb, deft use of language, is a similar bid for freedom.’
Deborah Pike, The Conversation
‘I was hooked.’
Nick Goldie, The Monaro Post
‘Winona is a compelling character, full of life and humour, and Miranda Darling draws you into her life so thoroughly that Thunderhead becomes a powerful and gripping experience of the insidious and subtle effects of coercive control.’
Dr Ann Skea, Midwest Book Review
