Although Gail Jones’s latest novel unfolds in the midst of a war, there is a lot that sets it apart from traditional war narratives. In many ways, Salonika Burning is less war story proper and more war adjacent, the theme and setting of the book both offset slightly from the central conflict of the first world war. Jones, an award-winning novelist, writes about art and softness, where others tend to focus on the drama of strategy, action and trauma.
Her latest book connects four significant historical figures from Australia and Britain: the author Stella (Miles) Franklin, the adventurer Olive King and the artists Grace Pailthorpe and Stanley Spencer, who all become just Stella, Olive, Grace and Stanley in the book. In the author’s note, Jones clarifies that while all four really did serve time in the vicinity of Salonika (now Thessaloniki) during the war, there are no records that they met or knew each other; her use of their first names only is a nod to this fictional stretch. Such detachment works for the reader, who might otherwise become tangled in their knowledge of the future, in which Stella goes on to become one of Australia’s most famous authors and Stanley one of Britain’s most famous painters.
