About the Author

Kirsten Tranter grew up in Sydney and lived in New York from 1998 to 2006, where she completed a PhD on English Renaissance literature at Rutgers University. She has published fiction, poetry and literary criticism. This is her first novel. She lives in Sydney with her husband and son.

Reviews

""A Common Loss" is a potent story of secrets, love, friendship, and the bonds that keep people close and is brimming with blackmail and deception and laced with grief, poetry, simmering emotional tension, and relationships both budding and exhausted." --"Australian Bookseller & Publisher" (Top Pick)

Sometimes what happens in Vegas should stay in Vegas, especially if all the people involved would rather be someplace else. -Elliot West is one of five college friends who have been meeting once a year after graduation for an alcohol-fueled weekend in Sin City. Over the years they have grown apart, and the weekends are now more dreaded than desired. With the recent death of Dylan, the most charismatic member, the group's tenth reunion is tinged with regret-and anger. -Elliot is the last to learn of the duplicity and secrets held by others, forcing him to reexamine his relationships. A newly minted college professor, he oozes ambivalence about his work, about the women in his life, and about the reunions. VERDICT Elliot's passivity as a protagonist and blandness as a narrator make it hard to care very much about what happens to him or his friends. Not quite literary fiction, not quite a buddy novel, Tranter's sophomore effort (after The Legacy) lacks enough tension and focus to keep the reader's interest.-Jan Blodgett, -Davidson, NC (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.