The Chosen is not the relatively straightforward affair it may, at first, appear to be. One assumes for the first hundred pages or so that the 'chosen' are those citizens of the small NSW Southern Tablelands town of Lost River who have been chosen by a randomising computer program to have their lives represented in the commemorative tapestry being woven as a civic project along with two other pet Town Council proposals, a new jail and a high-temperature incinerator. It's a mode that critic Ken Gelder has called 'dark pastoral'. Chosen, that is to say. The weaver interviews the chosen citizens and tells each story in turn.
Humanity is fully consistent with cruelty,' remarks one character with conviction.
Kerryn Goldsworthy is a Melbourne writer, critic and teacher.