We All Lived in Bondi Then
By (Author) Georgia Blain
Scribe Publications
Scribe Publications
30th January 2024
Australia
General
Fiction
Family life fiction / Stories about family
Narrative theme: love / relationships
Narrative theme: death, grief, loss
Narrative theme: interior life / psychological fiction
823.92
176
Width 144mm, Height 216mm, Spine 15mm
358g
From the author of the multi-award-winning bestseller Between a Wolf and a Dog, a powerful collection of previously unpublished stories. A sister is haunted by the consequences of a simple mistake. A daughter searches for certainty as her mother's memory degrades. An encounter at a house party changes the course of a life. In We All Lived in Bondi Then, beloved Australian author Georgia Blain returns to her resonant themes of relationships and family, illness and health, love and death. Composed in Blain's final years, these nine stories grapple with large questions on a human scale, brimming with her trademark acuity, nuance, and warmth. 'We All Lived in Bondi Then is a vibrant and adroit collection of distinctive, faceted stories ... As Blain limns the interior lives of her characters, so the collection glows against the darkness of its author's early death.' -Felicity Plunkett, The Saturday Paper 'With the gift of these nine moving and shapely stories comes the bonus of an elegant and elegiac foreword by Charlotte Wood, who knew the author well ... Each story is an intricate masterpiece of suspense, rendered in clean and graceful prose. Each is agonising, haunting, harrowing, the characters grounded in sharp reality ... The collection is concerned with facing reality, with looking death in the eye. As grim as this sounds, the stories are composed with a lyrical honesty and an unforgettable strength ... This is a powerful and vivid tapestry of life and love and the brutal quirks of human destiny.' -Carmel Bird, The Sydney Morning Herald ' Blain returns to some of her favourite, and most resonant, themes- family and relationships, love and death, health and illness ... Although the book is suffused with loss and grief, there are flashes of wry humour and hard-won insight.' -Nicole Abadee, The Sydney Morning Herald
Georgia Blain published novels for adults and young adults, essays, short stories, and a memoir. Her first novel was the bestselling Closed for Winter, which was made into a feature film. Her books have been shortlisted for numerous awards including the NSW, Victorian, and SA Premiers' Literary Awards, the ALS Gold Medal, the Stella Prize, and the Nita B. Kibble Award for her memoir Births Deaths Marriages. Georgia's works include The Secret Lives of Men, Too Close to Home, and the YA novel Darkwater. In 2016, Georgia published Between a Wolf and a Dog and the YA novel Special (Penguin Random House Australia). Between a Wolf and a Dog was shortlisted for the 2017 Stella Prize, and was awarded the 2017 Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Fiction and the 2016 University of Queensland Fiction Book Award. Georgia passed away in December 2016.