The Rehearsal

The Age

Saturday August 1, 2009

Cameron Woodhead

The Rehearsal Eleanor Catton Granta Books, $29.99 WHEN she wrote this, Eleanor Catton was closer to the coalface of adolescence than most adults. She was only 22, but her sparkling and assured debut novel is the product of an impressively mature literary imagination. Set in a high school, the book follows the fallout from a sex scandal between a female student and a music teacher. The illicit affair becomes the subject of envy for a gaggle of excited schoolgirls, of opprobrium and panic for parents and teachers, and for the local drama school, a source of inspiration for its next show. The Rehearsal is explicitly about performance as integral to human behaviour, and Catton really gets into the mind of her characters. We get everything from sharply observed teenage gabble to the theatrical inner declamations of a saxophone teacher. Funny, clever and surprisingly poignant, it will appeal especially to fans of Chris Lilley's Summer Heights High.

© 2009 The Age

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