A dying earth and a lament for lost fathers: Sheila Heti strips back the novel and makes it new

By Jane Gleeson-White, Adjunct Lecturer, UNSW Canberra, UNSW Sydney

Sheila Heti’s slender, folkloric novel Pure Colour contains multitudes. It’s a love story, a lament. And it’s a philosophical enquiry into rupture: radical alteration caused by the death of a father, and a dying iteration of life on earth.

She had thought that when someone died, it would be like they went into a different room. She had not known that life itself transformed itself into a different room, and trapped you in it without them.

Review: Pure…

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~	Hip flexors get weak when we sit too much – but simple stretches and strengthening exercises can leave you less stiff

~	Abortion benefits: Companies have a simple and legal way to help their workers living in anti-abortion states – expanding paid time off

~	Air traffic control funding model ravaged by pandemic as industry struggles to recover

~	Low-income families should not lose child-care subsidies while on parental leave

~	Why Ms. Marvel matters so much to Muslim, South Asian fans

~	Protests in Ottawa are a recurring disaster, affecting neighbourhoods and residents

~	We blew the whistle on Australia's central climate policy. Here's what a new federal government probe must fix

~	Friday essay: why soldiers commit war crimes – and what we can do about it

~	Pornography, the devil and baboons in fancy dress: what went on at the infamous historical Hellfire Club

~	Is Australia in the firing line of a new Chinese campaign against the US?