AustLit

'I chose to read this work through the poet’s chosen vessel, the throat. Finishing it left me with my heart right there – beating at the back of my throat; in awe of what I had just read, and in suspenseful anticipation of what is to come.' (Introduction)

'Since colonisation, stories of lost white children have been a feature of Australian literature. Elspeth Tilley calls it the ‘white-vanishing’ trope, arguing that stories of lost children, compulsively retold, enable white Australians to assume a victim position. Obscuring a history of violent dispossession, the lost white child functions as a symbol of national innocence. The lost white girl, in her spotless lace and linen, is where innocence is doubled down on. While the search for the lost girl offers an opportunity to assert national character, the mystery of what happens to all those cupids and Botticelli angels, merging prettily into the landscape, into the nonspecific threat of ‘out there’, remains a compelling lacuna around which the community rallies.' (Introduction)

'‘Her job, she knew, was to stay still and be petted.’ So thinks Ruth, one of the protagonists of Evie Wyld’s new novel The Bass Rock, as she experiences the uninvited sexual attentions of her husband’s first wife’s father while washing up after a Christmas lunch. Instead of staying still, she dares him to continue, confounding the passive role assigned to her. After he retreats she completes the washing up, then goes into the drawing room and carefully snaps the head off an expensive mantelpiece ornament that had been a wedding present. ‘It made a satisfying noise, but nothing loud enough to arouse suspicion next door, and she took the two pieces and wrapped them in a bit of old newsprint from the coal box, placed it on the hearth and stamped on it with the heel of her shoe.’ That night, when she tells her husband what had happened in the kitchen, he refuses to believe her, instead contemptuously labelling her a self-regarding fantasist.' (Introduction)

'The morning I may win a life-changing amount of money, I try to look worthy of it. My new dress hangs, tags intact, as I watch the clock in my Park Hyatt bathrobe. Ten minutes pass. I send a Facebook message. No reply. I’ve already deposited $100. If I’m being ghosted, I only have myself to blame. Starving artists shouldn’t waste money on professional hair-and-makeup. Twentynine-year-old women should know how to apply foundation.' (Introduction)