We open with Nic, a 45-year-old woman who loves her supermarket check-out job, loves weekly lunches with her niece Lena and loves objects. Although, as one soon learns, this isn't exactly accurate. See, it isn't the things Nic loves but the sentimental stories and tender moments they represent.
Where we see a dusty tiara, too-small shirt or defunct appliance, Nic sees a joyful parade with her mother, a romantic date or her niece's first steps.
However, with every room crammed to bursting, it's no surprise when Nic suffers a nasty fall, leaving her unconscious for days before being discovered by Lena and whisked to hospital.
The catch? She can't return until her home is safely decluttered; a task that falls squarely on the shoulders of her niece. So, while Nic sees her objects as imbued with memories and meaning, Lena only sees mess, something she's had enough of in her own life.
Especially after the cute boy from college films them sleeping together and shares it online for the world to see. Humiliating Lena and throwing her immediately and irreversibly into the reality all women eventually face, that of institutional sexism. A discrimination so intrinsic to society, even perpetrators like Lena's don't see themselves as bad.
An online sex tape may be too much to cope with, but a messy house? That is something Lena can clean up with ease. Totally unaware of just how damaging her solution of "tidying up" will be, Lena guts the house one garbage bag at a time; an ultimate breach of her aunt's trust.
During this war on junk, we meet Lena's older brother Will as he drifts through the city, freshly single and recently released from jail.
A novel founded firmly on the lives of its characters, Love Objects cuts between the trio; laying out and layering their obsessions and suffering with unreserved honesty. We may not have experienced hoarding, sexual abuse or prison but have all wrestled against the systems of power that give rise to these issues.
Yet it's the way Maguire treats this suffering and tension that demonstrates her well-earned maturity as a writer. She resists the temptation to offer escape by way of unrealistic optimism or neatly tied endings. Instead, using rich, poetic language to pull the reader through heavy moments and dense topics.
Compassionate and heart-wrenching, Love Object's a fierce lesson in empathy by the acclaimed Australian author, a novel that educates and entertains in a way readers won't quickly forget.
Reviewed by Sarah Pollok
