“There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.”

This is one of those decades' weeks

I'm gonna swing from the chandelier
From the chandelier
I'm gonna live like tomorrow doesn't exist
Like it doesn't exist

—Sia

Many hundreds of pages into Patrick White’s novel The Vivisector we meet a character who roams the Sydney streets around Surry Hills dragging a trolley on which she slaps lumps of meat and offal to feed the local cats. We realise eventually that this is Rhoda, the stepsister of the main character, Hurtle Duffield. Hurtle, now an acclaimed artist, was part of Rhoda’s family when they were wealthy and living in a mansion overlooking the Harbour. Rhoda has fallen on hard times and when Hurtle reunites with her, long absent from his life, he notes her drastic change of circumstance. Uncharacteristically, he even tries to be gentle about it.

To each page, Garland added languid, crimson drops in red India ink, hanging from the cut-out images like pendalogues from a chandelier. Blood drips from platters of grapes and tree boughs, statuaries and skeletons. Crosses seep, a ch…