Rite of Spring by Kris Kneen review – a woman’s sexual awakening lurks in the ocean’s depths

To describe Kris Kneen’s latest novel as “sexy” would be an understatement. The sensual, sometimes disturbing Rite of Spring redraws the limits of sex, desire and the body in bold new ways, and Kneen isn’t afraid to lean into the details. The novel features only two human characters – Miranda and Richard, who have signed up for a six-month stint as lighthouse carers on a remote island off the coast of Tasmania. The pair hope to reignite their failing marriage away from civilisation, where Richard had been unfaithful with a woman whose spectre still haunts any intimacy between them. Miranda, a marine biologist, is also recovering from a diving accident that severed her connection to the ocean, the only place she’s felt truly herself. Isolated on the freezing island, “one of the windiest places on earth”, they are hoping to rediscover what they’ve lost. But it awakens a deep sense of unease in Miranda, who has felt uncomfortable in her body since the accident and the onset of menopause. She finds herself drawn to the unknown and to the possibilities of who she might become in this new place. She remembered her excitement in the days before a dive. And if anyone had asked her what she was looking for down there in the deep water, she would have stared out into the future with that same unfocussed expression. Miranda’s search for something “huge and pure” in the ocean’s depths is a yearning that compels her. She’s the real star of this novel and it’s her sexual, physical and psychological awakening that reader and writer are invested in. Richard is mostly one-dimensional. His infidelity hangs between them but isn’t presented as unforgivable, so he comes across as an affable, slightly overprotective carer, whose purpose in the role of “husband” Miranda envies – particularly given how awkward she finds the more passive, feminised role of “wife”. His lack of curiosity sits in stark contrast to Miranda, whose eagerness to explore the possibilities of this new environment…