The novel switches points of view between five loosely connected characters, all Australians.[3]Sydney is the primary location of the novel's vignettes, but some take place in other parts of Australia, or in Paris, Sri Lanka, and other International locations.[2][4][5]
In his review in The Guardian's Marcel Theroux wrote "The book is replete with examples of important things being forgotten, suppressed or misunderstood."[2]
The New York Times review remarked on the satirical nature of the novel, and the pretentiousness of the characters' obsession with exotic food, with one character explaining privileged Australians are obsessed with food “Because they live in a country of no importance.”[4]
In a review in The Financial Times Boyd Tonkin wrote "De Kretser writes about the aura and texture of places with breath-stopping virtuosity. 'Briny and fumy', her Sydney appears 'regulated and hygienic' but remains 'voluptuously receptive to chaos and filth'.[5]
^ ab
Amelia Lester (18 April 2018). "For These Characters, Foreign Cultures Are Just Another Consumer Good". The New York Times. p. Page 16 of the Sunday Book Review. Retrieved 29 October 2020. But de Kretser, who was born in Sri Lanka and came to Australia at 14, saves her startling satirical firepower for another — the expats of the global West, or those who can travel on a whim.
^ ab
Boyd Tonkin (19 January 2018). "The Life to Come by Michelle de Kretser — a different life". The Financial Times. Retrieved 29 October 2020. Always game for a satirical sideswipe at academic and literary poseurs, Michelle de Kretser in her sixth novel depicts a professor who sternly tells a student that "Admiration is a problematic starting-point for analysis". This lofty arbiter of taste, by the way, spends her spare moments devouring trashy celebrity mags.
.jpg)
