He Would Never, by Holly Wainwright

Wealthy homemaker Liss has the rights to an exclusive riverside camping spot where she hosts an annual get together of female friends made in a mothers’ group 15 years earlier. Their families have grown and changed over that time and their differences have also grown – perhaps more so than anything they ever had in common. One thing that has not changed is Liss’s husband Lachie – still controlling and manipulative, but is he actually something much worse? The story begins with Lachie in big trouble at the most recent camping trip and then flashes back and forth to the start and evolution of the group and the start of Liss and Lachie’s relationship. It’s a tense tale that lays bare the operation of toxic masculinity in an everyday setting and its awful ramifications for women and, especially, children. But the way many of these people behave is just not believable and the final resolution is something of an anticlimax. It’s meant to be a tribute to female friendship, but the genre of over-privileged white women in Sydney with horrible marriages is already covered by Liane Moriarty and her ilk. Enough already.