Debut novelist from my hometown, Melbourne, Sinéad Stubbins presents a trippy, dark-as-night corporate satire with Stinkbug, the title referring to that individual in a workplace at the bottom of the pile. The novel tells the tale of Edith, a cautious, conflicted advertising professional at a Melbourne marketing firm, during a corporate retreat in the bush. With the firm recently scooped up by Swedish corporates, the retreat is fraught with danger, and Edith is exquisitely attuned to risks and opportunities. The author’s style is nimble but also relentlessly snarky and savage, nearly every line slamming every aspect of the firm and all its employees, and this reader found himself longing for real drama at the book’s halfway mark. Fortunately, the build-up to the climax swaps clever commentary for absurd horror as the retreat morphs into something over-the-top horrible, and Edith’s humanity claws out of the rubble of her dysfunctional life and work existence. Stinkbug is both a mad lampoon and a cautionary tale, and also a fine read.
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