Book Club - Thomas Vowles’s Our New Gods cover art

Book Club - Thomas Vowles’s Our New Gods

Book Club - Thomas Vowles’s Our New Gods

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 Thomas Vowles is a screenwriter and novelist. Today we’ll be discussing his debut novel Our New Gods. Ash has recently arrived in Melbourne. Like so many who’ve come from a regional town he’s looking to define himself whilst feeling wary of being . When he meets James it’s love-at-first-sight, at least for Ash. James is gorgeous and seems to have everything; great apartment, cool friends, hot boyfriend. James may not want Ash for a lover but his friendship gives Ash entry to a cool new world, with an equally cool set of friends. Amidst this group is James’s boyfriend Raf. Raf is something else; cool, in control, dangerous. Ash sees this firsthand at a party and hears it from Raf’s ex Booth. Booth is scared, and Ash is desperate to find out why before James gets dragged into it. — Our New Gods is a stunning thriller with more twists than I rightly know what to do with in our short time together. On its surface we have a love triangle with James and Raf at the centre and Ash staring on, unrequited but willing to do anything for James. As James tries to find his footing in Melbourne’s gay scene he can’t help but acknowledge to the reader that it’s only James he wants. Thus Ash is flung into an increasingly ill-advised set of scenarios as he frantically scrambles to protect James from the danger he sees in Raf. The novel plays with the tension between Ash’s desperation and the very real set of escalating circumstances surrounding the young men’s lives. Everyone in Our New Gods feels poised on the cusp of something whilst living at the breakneck speed of your twenties when everything seems possible but nothing feels like it has consequences. When it all comes to a head we as readers must also accept that we’ve dragged along for the ride, but now things are going to get real. Our choices in identifying and feeling kinship with the characters will extract a toll on us as we have our expectations thrown to the wind in the novel’s third act. Our New Gods is exciting, fun reading. Vowles’s skill as a screenwriter is brought to bear in the pacing and visual styling of the novel. His writing compels, even as it beguiles and tricks the reader into placing their trust in smoke.
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