Isobel on the Way to the Corner Shop

‘Quietly brilliant…Witting's characterizations are staggeringly sharp—it is hard to imagine a novel more keenly observed—simultaneously heartbreaking and (subtly) hilarious, not because they're exaggerated, but because they are so unsettlingly, overwhelmingly true…A compassionate masterpiece.’— Kirkus (starred review)

Isobel Callaghan is struggling to survive as a writer. She is isolated, poor and hungry. Leaving her boarding house in search of food, she has a breakdown on the way to the corner shop. Waking in the hospital, Isobel learns that she will be confined to a sanatorium. There, among the motley patients, and with the aid of great works of literature, she confronts the horrors of her past. But can she find a way to face the future? Confronting and compassionate, profound and funny, the second Isobel novel confirmed Amy Witting as one of the finest Australian writers of her time.