The Mint Lawn

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Winner of the Australian/Vogel Literary Award 1990


North Coast, New South Wales. Clementine is twenty-five and still living in the place where she grew up, rooted there by memories and her own inability to make changes until she has understood her past. The past is dominated by memories of her mother, and her mother, and her mother's attempts to dramatise and enrich small-town life and the perceptions of her three clever, receptive daughters.

But only Clementine has stayed. Is this out of loyalty to her mother's memory Or to comfort her father Perhaps she wants to find peace with Hugh, her earnest husband in whose house she most uncomfortably lives Or is the lure Thomas, who alone can appreciate Clementine's own sensuality, and her humour, but who must remain another of her secrets.

In The Mint Lawn, Gillian Mears has written a wonderful debut novel which will be read with pleasure and remembered with joy.

'Gillian Mears writes like an angel.' - Kate Veitch, The Age

'. powerful and beautifully balanced.' - Katharine England, Adelaide Advertiser

Author Bio

Gillian Mears grew up in the northern New South Wales town of Grafton. Acclaim came early, with her short-story collections and novels winning major prizes. Her first novel, The Mint Lawn (1991), won the 1990 Australian/Vogel Literary Award. Gillian's books include Ride a Cock Horse (1988), The Grass Sister (1995) and A Map of the Gardens (2002), which won the 2003 Steele Rudd Australian Short Story Award.

Her third novel, Foal's Bread, was published by Allen & Unwin in 2011. It won The Prime Minister's Award for Fiction, The Age Book of the Year for Fiction and the ALS Gold Medal, all awarded in 2012. It was shortlisted for The Indie Awards (2012), the Barbara Jefferis Award (2012), the Miles Franklin Literary Award (2012) and the ABIA (Australian Book Industry Awards) Book of the Year (2012). Her children's story, The Cat With the Coloured Tail, was published by Walker Books Australia.

Gillian died at home in Grafton on 16 May 2016. She is sorely missed and remembered with loving gratitude.