Fourth Estate, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, Australia 2026
Cover design Hazel Lam
Cover images Adobe Stock; shutterstock.com; rawpixel.com
Kathryn Heyman has captured both the delicacy and the rawness of sharing the dying time of a loved one.
Circle of Wonders is a kind of case study of a fractured family handling the more or less simultaneous deaths of Roni and Sylvie over the period of a single lunar month. The structure uses lunar month chapters and immediately flags the female focus of this work.
Roni is a larger-than-life artistic woman, sister of the polar opposite Anna, mother of Belle and Shanti, daughter of Sylvie. Anna returns from her long-time home in England for the death of her mother and inevitably, if reluctantly, becomes enmeshed in Roni’s dying plans.
Although Roni’s life has not gone entirely to plan – she’s been abused by the odious lurking figure of The Drone – she is determined to orchestrate her own death and the celebration of her life via a living wake.
She dies at home, surrounded by family and friends, able to some extent to say what she needs to say to each. She is even hopeful that her long-estranged daughter Shanti will return from Canada for the wake. Sylvie, on the other hand, the ageing mother of Roni and Anna, is perforce placed in care and dies in a facility.
The author examines the human reactions to consciously sitting with death and the dying. Old resentments and jealousies between siblings and other family members flare. Friends become assertive of their ‘ownership’ of the dying, earnt through years of devotion and closeness, relationships in stark contrast to the distance of the relatives. Everyone becomes exhausted and fraught.
But in the end, everyone also wishes to do their best for the dying, to allow the dignity of passing and the moulding of a memory cleansed of bitterness and regret.
In the course of these interactions, we see the big questions in this work: Can we die well if we haven’t lived well? Can a ‘sisterhood’ stare down a coercive male? Can we compensate for the mistakes and shortcomings of our parenting? (Should we even beat ourselves up about these or are we all just trying our best with what we have?) What are the measures of love for family? How can we best care for one another?
There is a gentle tolerance for human frailty in this work, that leads us quietly to the epiphanies we experience through the book people. The waxing and waning of the moon, the many musical references, the spoken and unspoken words, the snatches of childhood and adult memory all take us to Roni’s simple truth that we ourselves are the true wonder of the world.
Love is somehow in our bones, and hope carries us forwards despite and because of everything. The possibility of change and forgiveness is always present.
This is a deeply affecting work, not least because we will all face its questions. And somehow, there is a lightness in it that may not be anticipated, a willingness to speak of death and dying in a society that often shuts the door on such conversations.
Thank you to HarperCollinsPublishers for my review copy and to Kathryn for speaking with me about how we face dying – and living – and the richness of this book.