The Revisionists

Gripping, propulsive and intelligent, The Revisionists is a tour de force, an absorbing, unputdownable novel about ambition - and how we curate our own stories and rescript our memories in order to survive.
Upper East Side, Manhattan, 2023: Christine Campbell, former journalist, turns on the television to watch a documentary paying homage to her Pulitzer Prize-shortlisted coverage of the unrest in 1999 in the North Caucasus. She is newly widowed, wealthy and attempting to write a memoir celebrating her bold life and significant achievements in writing about the silencing of women during conflict.
But truth has a way of resurfacing, even when buried deep beneath money, memory and reinvention. When Dr Frankie Pearson, Christine's oldest - and estranged - friend, knocks on her door, the pair must reconcile their memories and come to terms with the far-reaching and disastrous decisions they both made over twenty years ago. What really happened in that small mountain village in Dagestan in the dying days of the millennium, while Christine was hellbent on getting the scoop of a lifetime?
An elegant, thrilling and brilliantly compelling novel of the consequences of the conflict between a person's principles and their desire for acclaim, The Revisionists examines the malleability of memory and the slippery nature of the truth - and the lengths that people will go to to avoid facing both.
'A beautifully crafted story ... the immense detail and beauty in the writing create an altogether genuine setting for the reader to become absorbed in. A powerful examination of truth, memory and ambition ... a sophisticated novel that both overtly and subtly turns the spotlight on the oft-overlooked keepers of knowledge: women.' Books+Publishing

Michelle Johnston is both an author and an emergency physician. These occupations are not always the easiest of bedfellows. She is a Staff Specialist at the Royal Perth Hospital Emergency Department, a busy inner-city trauma centre where she works as both clinician and teacher. Michelle's first novel, Dustfall, was published by UWA Publishing in February 2018 and shortlisted for the MUD Literary Prize for a debut novel in 2019. Her second novel, Tiny Uncertain Miracles, was published by HarperCollins in 2022. Her days are mostly spent searching for the beauty and awe in a frequently brutal reality.