Eliza travels to Sydney to deal with the estate of her Aunt Dodge, and finds Maxine, a hitherto unknown cousin, occupying Dodge's apartment. When legal complications derail plans to live it up on their inheritance, the women's lives become consumed by absurd attempts to deal with Australian tax law, as well their own mounting boredom and squalor. The most astonishing debut novel of the decade,
Dodge Rose
calls to mind Henry Green in its skewed use of colloquial speech, James Joyce in its love of inventories, and William Gaddis in its virtuoso lampooning of law, high finance, and national myth.