T
By (Author) Alan Fyfe
Transit Lounge Publishing
Transit Lounge Publishing
1st September 2022
Australia
General
Fiction
Paperback
232
Width 153mm, Height 234mm
*Shortlisted for the TAG Hungerford Manuscript Award 2018*
*Shortlisted for the International Chaffinch Press Manuscript Award (Ireland)*
Chilling to read, cut with powerful energy and strong feeling.
T or Timothy lives on the economic margins, both using and selling methamphetamine in Mandurah. When a friend, Gulp, tragically dies and T grows close to Lori-Bird his life promises to become more centred. But he moves between loving and leaving her.
This is a lyrical and arresting portrait of characters who crave love but struggle with addiction and the tenuous yet intimate community connections it gives them. The spirit of the Peel landscape informs both Ts identity and the lives of the people he encounters and offers a way out.
Intimate with suffering and beauty, T is also at times transcendent. A contemporary novel with the urgency of what Davies Candy, Kerouacs On the Road, and Garners Monkey Grip were to their own times.
Confronting and discomfiting, with small moments of redemption T is very much a story for our times. Kate Noske and Richard Rossiter (Hungerford Award Judges).
There is nothing else currently being written that is quite as exciting. Its blend of realism, grittiness, pared back lyricism and magical realism is unique and hasnt been seen since the work of a powerful novelist of regional life like Tom Flood. T works the margins, both in terms of place and subject of the culture around meth use, in utterly compelling ways. This story needs to be told. Lucy Dougan, Premiers Award winner and Westerly editor.