Courier Mail

“Goldbloom’s voice, idiosyncratic and consistently fascinating, plumbs a rich vein of originality that is refreshing and, above all, fun to read … a strong contender for the most interesting and innovative short story collection of the year.”

Chris Flynn, Australian Book Review

“All fiction has elements of nonfiction to it. Not that Goldbloom’s father (or anyone else, for that matter) dropped her off a roof, but all the scenes in all these stories are nearly unanimously that shocking, and that true, and that good … Did she ever taste muskrat? That’s anybody’s guess. But one thing’s for certain: She can write well enough to make you think you did.”

Matthue Roth, Galus Australis

“What’s constant is the surprising insight or odd turn that the stories take.”

Scoop Magazine

“…it’s as if we have a glimpse for a few pages into the very heart of characters’ conscious thoughts.”

Readings Monthly

AWP Novel Award 2008

ForeWord Review’s Book of the Year in Literary Fiction

Gin, the albino, marries to escape the confines of an asylum. Toad, a little man who wears corsets, marries to prove his manhood. Together they are freaks – feared and ridiculed by the remote farming community in which they live. Into their lives come two Italian POWs bringing music, sensuality and a love that will fan the flames of small town bigotry.

Goldie Goldbloom chats with Lisa Guidarini about her first novel, The Paperbark Shoe, set in 1940s Australia
Book Browse

“An unusual and haunting tale that will linger in readers’ minds.”
Publishers Weekly

“The freshest, most absorbing debut I’ve read in years”
Sacramento Book Review

“Fast becoming an international literary star”
Out in Perth

“Brilliantly over the top and still completely believable”
Bookslut

“Exquisite writing and phrasing”
Blogcritics.com

The Paperbark Shoe is “intriguing” and “appealing”
The Huffington Post

Caribousmom.com describes the novel as “breathtaking”, “extraordinary” and “beautifully wrought” and gave it five stars.

“Both lyrical and plain spoken”
The Washington Post

“A deeply affecting, beautifully modulated debut novel”
The Richmond Times Dispatch

“An elegant, introspective story”
New City Lit

“This novel is remarkable for its depth and for its vivid and striking language.”
Piker Press

“A wonderful novel… richly deserves a five-star rating… an interesting, character driven book which will keep your attention from beginning to end”
Of Books and Reading

“Interesting and oddly fascinating, with gorgeous writing.”
Knitting and Sundries

“The Paperbark Shoe is not to be missed… an exceptional first novel by a writer sure to achieve both critical and commercial success.”
Playback

“Goldbloom’s sentences flow in an exquisite rhythm. Her word choice is impeccable…Highly recommended”
Tser Island

“Her intellect serves her imagination”
The Chicago Tribune

“Sublimated eroticism”
Windy City Times

“Descriptions of Australia’s flora and fauna… so vivid that it seems as if [they were written] while looking out your window”
Chicago Reader

Jewcy.com (The Big Jewcy: 100 Jews to Know)

“This book needs to be experienced, and its nuances and plot twists discovered along the way.”
Tutu’s Two Cents

Gin’s voice is truly memorable in its searing emotion and discomfiting honesty, even when we know that she is not being honest with herself. Gin, Toad and Antonio especially are clearly rendered, and there are also memorable minor characters inhabiting the small town that projects so much loathing into their lives.

Goldie Goldbloom has received several awards for her short fiction, and her first novel is an assured debut written in beautifully precise language. If it falters slightly it does so only at the very end, perhaps because Goldbloom found it hard to farewell her characters. So too will the reader.”

Lorien Kaye

“I thought of Flannery O’Conner as I read this remarkable novel, which is sometimes horribly funny and sometimes heartbreaking, always gripping and populated by unforgettable characters. I thought of Christina Stead as well – but mostly I thought: I have never read anything quite like this, nor has anyone else. The voice is acid, funny, at first commonsensical and un-self-pitying, later lyrical, later madly deluded; the voice is gorgeous, it is brilliant. How Goldie Goldbloom makes us feel the absolute reality of another human soul while simultaneously making us shriek with laughter is beyond me. But this is exactly what she does, and the result is dazzling.”

Andrea Barrett

“The Paperbark Shoe is a strange, mesmerizing tale about characters uncomfortably defined by superficial eccentricities. It is also a wrenching love story.”

Joanna Scott

What an astonishing book this is! It’s hard to believe “The Paperbark Shoe” is Goldie Goldbloom’s first novel because she has the audaciousness, the wildly inventive language, and the historical mastery of – well, it would be hard to think of any one writer she resembles. Her book runs like a live current between poles of emotion, searing a path between delight and pain, the local and the universal, and finally between love and loss. I can’t remember when I last heard a new voice as exhilarating as this.

Rosellen Brown

Write a story about forbidden love. The writers of the two best stories (as chosen by Goldie) will receive two signed paperback editions of The Paperbark Shoe (one for you, and one for a friend).

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