This Taste for Silence
(Paperback)
Publishing Details
This Taste for Silence
By (Author) Amanda O'Callaghan
University of Queensland Press
University of Queensland Press
4th June 2019
Australia
Classifications
Physical Properties
Paperback
208
Width 128mm, Height 198mm, Spine 15mm
206g
Description
A marvellously accomplished debut collection from QLA Writers Fellowship winner Amanda O'Callaghan. The balance of power in a marriage shifts, with shocking consequences. An elderly woman recounts a chilling childhood memory on the family farm. A taxi driver with a missing wife reveals unexpected skills. An inherited painting brings an eerily troubling legacy. Subtle, compelling and unsettling, Amanda O'Callaghan's stories work at the edges of the sayable, through secrets, erasures and glimpsed moments of disclosure. They shimmer with unspoken histories and characters who have a 'taste for silence'.
Reviews
'A poignant, dark, surprising and utterly haunting collection.' Ryan O'Neill
'With economy and grace, O'Callaghan exposes the fractures, the beauty and the mystery hidden behind closed doors.' Paddy O'Reilly
'Amanda O'Callaghan's stories express secret lives and private injuries, hidden victories and losses ... Through the slow pull of their undertow and their sudden tripwires, these nuanced, riveting stories limn the shadows, revealing what lurks and lurches in the unspoken.' Felicity Plunkett
PRAISE FOR AMANDA O'CALLAGHAN
'Amanda has the ability to devise poignant scenarios ... and execute these with prose that ignores clich and speaks to the poetic experience.' Queensland Writers Fellowship judges' comments
Author Bio
Amanda O'Callaghan is a Brisbane-based author whose short stories and flash fiction have been published and won awards in Australia, the United Kingdom and Ireland. Her work has been awarded and shortlisted in the Bath Flash Fiction Award, Flash 500, Carmel Bird Award, Aeon Award, Bristol Short Story Prize and Fish Short Story Prize. A former advertising executive, Amanda holds English degrees from King's College London, and a PhD from the University of Queensland. In 2016 she was a recipient of a Queensland Writers Fellowship. This Taste for Silence is her debut collection. www.amandaocallaghan.com
