The Night Side of the Country
By (Author) Meagan Delahunt
UWA Publishing
UWA Publishing
1st April 2020
Australia
General
Fiction
823.92
Paperback
144
Width 130mm, Height 180mm
It is the Time of the Felled Men.
M, a writer, finds her own past triggered by the constant revelations of misogyny and violence. The novel she is writing stalls. She involves herself in #MeToo and this has consequences including the threat of litigation. She retreats to a guesthouse on a holy island (a fictional Iona) and there she encounters B - a woman who may or may not be a figment of her imagination - a woman who may or may not be Irish. This encounter takes M's novel in a different direction. B is reckoning with her violent political past in an organisation known as the Movement. B also suffers the consequences of stepping forward in this period. She has been on the run since speaking out against gender violence.
All the way through, the threat looms large: A man may come here. We both know this much.
The novel plays with modes of storytelling to address the central questions: How do we deal with trauma and gender violence How do we give voice to that which has been unvoiced How do we heal
This feminist genre-crossing novel explores the creative process as a place of refuge, ambiguity, and as a starting point for resistance. The place where the 'You' and the 'I' connect.