Patricia Schonstein is a novelist, poet, author of children’s books and curator of anthologies. Her novels variously employ magical-realism, meta-fiction, speculative fiction and narrative fiction. They are filled with works of art, delicious food and fine fabrics. They tantalise and leave readers hungry for banquets or just a simple meal of bread, cheese and wine.
Interiors are moody, evocative and furnished with a curator’s eye. Urban and natural landscapes seem painted or photographed, yet the sound of wind and traffic, bird-song and the ringing of bells can be heard.
The characters range from paramour to rogue, angel to devil, seducer to temptress, magician to innkeeper. Artists, soldiers, nuns, archivists, morticians, vintners, asylum seekers and soothsayers meet and mingle on the pages, acting out dramas that are at once improbable and ‘everyday’.
Between them, the characters grapple and generally triumph over the human conditions of addiction, longing and despair. They war, make peace, betray, forgive and ponder the meaning of life.
You will find love, sensuality, Shakespearean touches and many passions in Schonstein's work, but also numerous questions. Without detracting from the pace of each unfolding narrative, she places, at its centre, a kernel of ponderables concerning ethical light and darkness, intolerance, the recurrence of war and genocide, and our abuse of the natural world.
These questions are debated and considered, with or without resolution, by her characters as they dine at sumptuous tables, drink wine, gamble or act out their tense dramas.
Despite their cores of dark matter, her novels explore the triumphs of the human heart over adversity, exposing hope and a sense of beauty.
