Australian Gospel: A Family Saga

(Paperback)

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From one of Australia's most brilliant writers, a dark comedy about the tangled fates of two couples and the children trapped between them Michael and Mary Shelley are Christian fanatics who loathe their fellow Australians - especially their 'foul language, reckless indulgence of alcohol and obsession with idiotic ball sports'. Lenore and Tom Blaine are working-class Queensland publicans raising a large family in a raucous, loving, rugby-league-obsessed home. There's just one problem. The Blaines are foster parents to three of the Shelleys' children, who were removed from Michael and Mary as infants. And the Shelleys are prepared to do anything to get them back. Anything. Australian Gospel is a family saga like no other - heartbreaking, hilarious and altogether astonishing. 'This is an extraordinary family story colliding with a far stranger family story. It's like one of those great novels of the nineteenth century, except true.' Richard Fidler 'One of the best writers of his generation.' Benjamin Law 'Blaine's native tongue, an ocker irreverence, gives his writing an amiable charm and reflects the styles of artists such as Tim Winton, Stella Franklin and Helen Garner.' Australian Book Review

Author Bio

Lech Blaine is the author of the memoir Car Crash and the Quarterly Essay Top Blokes. His writing has appeared in The Monthly, Guardian Australia, The Best Australian Essays, Griffith Review, Kill Your Darlings and Meanjin. He was an inaugural recipient of a Griffith Review Queensland Writing Fellowship and is the Charles Perkins Centre 2023 Writer in Residence.