The Factory

A novel

Published by Australian Scholarly Publishing, October 2005

Hilda has travelled to Japan to research The Factory, a controversial arts community that formed then collapsed twenty years earlier. When The Factory is re-formed by old members driven by motives she is unable to uncover, Hilda is drawn into a complex intrigue of love, betrayal and revenge.

Reviews and Awards

- Listed in best books of the year in Australian Book Review and The Sydney Morning Herald

- Highly Commended in the FAW Christina Stead Award for Fiction
(Winners: Kate Grenville The Secret River, Alex Skovron The Poet
Highly Commended: Paddy O'Reilly The Factory, Alex Miller Prochownik's Dream
Commended: Robert Drewe Grace, J M Coetzee Slow Man)

"The Factory is a beautifully crafted and intriguing novel; so closely worked and self-consistent each part carries its full effect. The intricate plotting — the way it pieces each part of the story together — equals the way individuals find themselves bound to a group. And the writing, with its watchfulness — its close observation of people and places — creates a world at once lonely and claustrophobic."
The Age

"The Factory did a rare thing: it turned an ingenious intellectual premise into a complex, gripping, flesh and blood story. It was full of ideas about history, art, ego and community, but these all emerged seamlessly from the pacy main plot."
Australian Book Review

"The Factory, the first novel by Melbourne's Paddy O'Reilly, revealed a writer with a facility for delineating the complex and often subterranean behaviours of the hidden self."
Sydney Morning Herald 2007

" ... ingeniously conceived... O'Reilly has established a reputation as an able short story writer and her first novel confirms that she is an author to watch."
Space Magazine

"Paddy O'Reilly's impressive first novel wrings a deep tension out of a long-unexplained gap... Hilda becomes caught in the story she had set out to capture."
Sydney Morning Herald 2005

"Paddy O'Reilly has written a moving story rich in cultural flavour and revealing in human frailties. This is an outstanding debut novel."
Crime Downunder (link to full review)

"O'Reilly has written a well-crafted novel that belongs among the best in modern literary fiction."
Antipodes: A North American Journal of Australian Literature