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AbstractHistoryArchive Description
'Whether working in food service or in high-end retail, lit by a laptop in a sex chat or by the camera of an acclaimed film director, sharing a dangerous apartment in the city, a rooming house in China or a vacation rental in Mallorca, the protagonists of the ten stories comprising Paul Dalla Rosa's debut collection, An Exciting and Vivid Inner Life, navigate the spaces between aspiration and delusion, ambition and aimlessness, the curated profile and the unreliable body.
'By turns unsparing and tender, Dalla Rosa explores our lives in late-stage capitalism, where globalisation and its false promises of connectivity and equity leave us all further alienated and disenfranchised. His stories are small masterpieces of regret, futility and tenderness, dripping with acuity, irony and wit.'
Source: Publisher's blurb.
Notes
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Author's note: For Stephan
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Selected as one of the Guardian Australia best Australian books of 2022
Selected as one of the ABC Arts best books of 2022
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
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Sublime Neutrality
2023
single work
review
— Appears in: Sydney Review of Books , July 2023;
— Review of An Exciting and Vivid Inner Life 2022 selected work short story'I read somewhere that good literature is indifferent to evil. It might have been that good writers are indifferent to evil. I retained none of the context, only the pull quote, and why wouldn’t I? What a seductive proposition – giving readers permission to banish the author, or at least the spectre of their moral character; giving writers permission to write without thinking, first, always, what does this say about me? ' (Introduction)
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Best of 2022 in Australian Reading
2023
single work
review
— Appears in: Meanjin Online 2023;
— Review of This All Come Back Now 2022 anthology short story ; Unlimited Futures 2022 anthology short story ; An Exciting and Vivid Inner Life 2022 selected work short story ; Women I Know 2022 selected work short story ; Cautionary Tales for Excitable Girls 2022 selected work short story ; Everything Feels like the End of the World 2022 selected work short story ; The Burnished Sun 2022 selected work short story ; This Devastating Fever 2022 single work novel ; Losing Face 2022 single work novel ; Root and Branch : Essays on Inheritance 2022 selected work essay ; People Who Lunch : Essays on Work, Leisure and Loose Living 2022 selected work essay ; The Diplomat 2022 single work novel -
Staying on the Grind
2022
single work
review
— Appears in: Meanjin Online 2022;
— Review of An Exciting and Vivid Inner Life 2022 selected work short story -
Strange and Unfamiliar Terrain : Three Bold New Short Story Collections
2022
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , July no. 444 2022; (p. 41-42)
— Review of The Teeth of a Slow Machine 2022 selected work short story ; What Fear Was 2022 selected work short story ; An Exciting and Vivid Inner Life 2022 selected work short story 'In the wake of other recent compelling débuts – Paige Clark’s meticulously crafted and imagined She is Haunted being a standout – three new short story collections, varying markedly in tone, style, and setting, offer bold and unsettling visions of twenty-first-century life.'(Introduction)
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An Exciting and Vivid Inner Life Paul Dalla Rosa
2022
single work
review
— Appears in: The Monthly , June no. 189 2022; (p. 65)
— Review of An Exciting and Vivid Inner Life 2022 selected work short story 'A WHITE-COLLAR gay man, bored on a luxury holiday in Majorca, takes a bus to Palma and uses the Grindr app to buy extortionately priced drugs. An Australian actor, half-heartedly attempting to resuscitate her career in Hollywood, eats marijuana gummies to make things “soft around the edges”. A woman with a loathsome call-centre job shares a fl at with a man who rejects her friendship overtures; he writes her a note saying he “would prefer to live separate but cohabited lives” and is “not comfortable with social interactions with a stranger”.'(Introduction)
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The Best New Books Released in May as Selected by Avid Readers and Critics
2022
single work
review
— Appears in: ABC News [Online] , May 2022;
— Review of Losing Face 2022 single work novel ; Daisy and Woolf 2022 single work novel ; An Exciting and Vivid Inner Life 2022 selected work short story ; The Jaguar 2022 selected work poetry -
‘Propulsive’, ‘Evocative’, ‘Brilliant’ : The Best Australian Books Out in June
2022
single work
review
— Appears in: The Guardian Australia , 1 June 2022;
— Review of Horse : A Novel 2022 single work novel ; Our Members Be Unlimited 2022 single work graphic novel non-fiction ; Basin 2022 single work novel ; An Exciting and Vivid Inner Life 2022 selected work short story ; Talking About a Revolution 2022 selected work essay ; Pomegranate and Fig 2022 single work novel ; Dirt Town 2022 single work novel ; The Eulogy 2022 single work novel -
An Exciting and Vivid Inner Life Paul Dalla Rosa
2022
single work
review
— Appears in: The Monthly , June no. 189 2022; (p. 65)
— Review of An Exciting and Vivid Inner Life 2022 selected work short story 'A WHITE-COLLAR gay man, bored on a luxury holiday in Majorca, takes a bus to Palma and uses the Grindr app to buy extortionately priced drugs. An Australian actor, half-heartedly attempting to resuscitate her career in Hollywood, eats marijuana gummies to make things “soft around the edges”. A woman with a loathsome call-centre job shares a fl at with a man who rejects her friendship overtures; he writes her a note saying he “would prefer to live separate but cohabited lives” and is “not comfortable with social interactions with a stranger”.'(Introduction)
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Strange and Unfamiliar Terrain : Three Bold New Short Story Collections
2022
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , July no. 444 2022; (p. 41-42)
— Review of The Teeth of a Slow Machine 2022 selected work short story ; What Fear Was 2022 selected work short story ; An Exciting and Vivid Inner Life 2022 selected work short story 'In the wake of other recent compelling débuts – Paige Clark’s meticulously crafted and imagined She is Haunted being a standout – three new short story collections, varying markedly in tone, style, and setting, offer bold and unsettling visions of twenty-first-century life.'(Introduction)
-
Best of 2022 in Australian Reading
2023
single work
review
— Appears in: Meanjin Online 2023;
— Review of This All Come Back Now 2022 anthology short story ; Unlimited Futures 2022 anthology short story ; An Exciting and Vivid Inner Life 2022 selected work short story ; Women I Know 2022 selected work short story ; Cautionary Tales for Excitable Girls 2022 selected work short story ; Everything Feels like the End of the World 2022 selected work short story ; The Burnished Sun 2022 selected work short story ; This Devastating Fever 2022 single work novel ; Losing Face 2022 single work novel ; Root and Branch : Essays on Inheritance 2022 selected work essay ; People Who Lunch : Essays on Work, Leisure and Loose Living 2022 selected work essay ; The Diplomat 2022 single work novel -
Writer Paul Dalla Rosa
2022
single work
column
— Appears in: The Saturday Paper , 28 May - 3 June 2022; 'Paul Dalla Rosa’s anticipated debut collection of stories searches for the beauty in contemporary desperation. By Isabella Trimboli.'
Awards
- 2023 shortlisted Queensland Literary Awards — University of Southern Queensland Australian Short Story Collection – Steele Rudd Award
- 2023 longlisted APA Book Design Awards — Best Designed Literary Fiction / Poetry Cover designed by Josh Durham
- 2023 shortlisted Victorian Premier's Literary Awards — Prize for Fiction