The Underworld

Martha Mullins is a misfit. Her mother is glamorous, aloof and judgemental. Her father, mostly absent. Academic and shy, she finds herself fascinated by the underworld, a place she learns about in Roman mythology classes at school. To Martha, the underworld and its divine inhabitants provide a place of refuge, escape, imagination and desire.

How will Martha find her way in the world where she cannot be herself? How will she find a home for the love she feels?

The Underworld is a wondrous novel from an award-winning author who wields her considerable powers with assuredness and grace. Funny, brave, insightful and clever, Martha will break your heart – then mend it – many times over.

Praise for The Underworld

Intimate and compassionate. A charismatic and imaginative novel.
Charlotte Callander, Books + Publishing

The underworld is a fresh mastery of [Laguna's] strange balance of abstraction and the everyday. The language is hypnotising. Laguna's rare ability to describe emotion without cliche can be revelatory.
Miriam Cosic, The Saturday Paper

Laguna explores growing up while feeling different and unseen. She navigates Martha's character development - and the pitfalls and dangers of trying not to be different - with compassion and care. The superior skill of her writing means the reader cannot help but be invested in Martha's life desperately wanting her to be happy and loved.
Bob Moore, Good Reading magazine

The latest novel from Sofie Laguna has a lovely beguiling quality from the get-go. It is 1974 and teenager Martha, the only child of wealthy but taciturn parents, has fallen in love with the classics at her elite private school. She is fascinated by ancient cultures’ understanding of the underworld. This becomes an important metaphor for Martha, who seeks distance from her adolescent awkwardness, her family’s internal politics, and her burgeoning understanding of her own sexuality. Laguna elegantly charts her intellectual and sexual awakening through high school, university and to a hopeful glimpse of adulthood.
Sian Cain, The Guardian

A gorgeously melancholic novel about Martha, a classics-obsessed teen navigating loneliness, desire and the depths of her imagination. The Miles Franklin winner luminously captures boarding-school friendships, mythic fixations and the tumult of a private inner world.
Melanie Kembrey, Sydney Morning Herald

Sofie Laguna writes the kind of books that remind me how much power can reside in relatively unadorned language. Reading her is always a transformative experience. A pitch perfect story of mourning, healing and awakening. Absorbing, tender and elegantly done.
Simon McDonald, Written By Syme

This novel is the one that has lingered most with me all year. The plot is, essentially, Martha's intellectual and sexual awakening through adolescence and into adulthood. But credit to Laguna, for Martha has a wonderfully realised interiority, and you will miss her company once you're done.
Sian Cain, Guardian, Books of the Year