Beneath the Bloodwood Tree” (Allen & Unwin 2008) is a murder story with a difference. Set in the harsh Pilbara area of north-western Australia, the novel follows the story of Pia, a young professional whose accidental discovery of the remnants of a long forgotten acquaintance lead her on her own journey of self discovery. This is a story of intimate violence, in which our everyday assumptions about love, family, trust and ambition all come under scrutiny.
“This is Julienne van Loon’s follow up novel to her highly acclaimed debut, Road Story, and it passes the tricky second novel test... Beneath the bloodwood tree, there are relationships both bruising and redeeming, with lies tightly coiled in the social fabric. Adultery, domestic abuse, sexual desire, ageing and euthanasia – van Loon’s writing manages to negotiate the balance between tantalising detail and becoming too explicit.”
Thuy On The Age
"Van Loon's novel is faithful to the essential spirit of Australia - to its abiding nihilism. The carking call of a crow ends Xavier Herbert's Capricornia (1938). On its much smaller scale, van Loon's book is a vibrant, telling echo."
Peter Pierce The Australian Book Review
“In her second novel, van Loon has taken the space to deliver something more expansive... there are some satisfyingly dark moments.... Almost in a talismanic way, the story of a missing person nests somewhere inside the stories of other Port Hedland’s denizens and promises at times to deliver intermittent doses of fear-and-or terror.”
Genevieve Tucker The Australian
“Port Hedland is an interesting setting for a novel, the rough mining town that van Loon depicts with a sure, economical touch, the sound of heavy machinery and the ships that carry ore constantly in the background. Yet it is the machinery of healing, the efforts of humans to arrest and alleviate the body’s decay, that van Loon focuses on.”
Dorothy Johnston The Canberra Times
Road Story
Julienne van Loon’s debut novel, “Road Story” (Allen & Unwin 2005) begins with a bang as the young protagonist, Diana, flees from the scene of a road accident, leaving her best friend unconscious and bleeding. But from what does Diana really flee? The reader travels to the red dust and isolation of an outback roadhouse to sit - perhaps uncomfortably - beside the runaway as she confronts new and uncomfortable challenges that ultimately leave the road itself as the only , inevitable, constant.
“Road Story is a striking debut by a young writer and bodes well for Julienne van Loon’s future work. The title might suggest a quest for redemption. What will be found on the road? There are echoes of Kerouac, or, in another medium, the road movie. But van Loon is out to subvert all notions of coming good… a bold narrative experiment.”
Ingrid Wassenaar The Sydney Morning Herald
“Reviewers, mostly, and the public, generally, don’t get excited when the new Vogel is published. This year they should. Julienne van Loon’s desperate joyride, Road Story, is the best Vogel winner to come along since 1990, when Gillian Mears’s equally confident, but very different, The Mint Lawn won first place. Van Loon gives us a story that rockets along like a vicious version of Puberty Blues, but it is written with the kind of steely control and respect for ambiguity that invites comparison with the better films of Ken Loach. Road Story doesn’t seek to explain or exoticise its characters; it just captures them head on.”
Michelle Griffin The Australian Book Review
“The Vogel award for the best unpublished first novel has revealed some talents that have endured. Julienne van Loon may well be one of them.”
Peter Pierce The Bulletin
“A toughly written, insistent novel that leaves us tasting red dust and the bitterness of unfulfilled, damaged lives.”
Christopher Bantick The Australian
“[An] evocative debute novel.”
Tony Wilson The Monthly
“A taut, menacing tale.”
Paul Robinson Qantas Inflight Magazine
“There is much to admire in this novel. The sense of a girl between places – literally and metaphorically. The weightlessness of her displacement as she struggles between country and city, girl and woman, from ordinary to potentially criminal, is extremely well handled… Di is an interesting character, held at arm’s length so we remain detached from her, even as we sympathise. And the energy and care put into each sentence is obvious and impressive.”
Marian McCarthy The Age
“Raw, direct and passionate, the assurance of van Loon’s novel should distract no one from the integrity and intelligence which give weight to it.”
James Bradley, Judge, The Australian/Vogel Award 2004
“Road Story is rich in detail, and van Loon beautifully captures the vast emptiness of the outback.”
Diane Stubbings The Canberra Times
“Van Loon handles her story masterfully. There is a bleak realism to Road Story, and an ending that will confound expectations. Great for reading groups.”
Lachlan Jobbins Good Reading Magazine