AustLit

'Jennifer Down cements her status as a leading light of Australian literary fiction in this heart-rending and intimate saga of one woman's turbulent life

'So by the grace of a photograph that had inexplicably gone viral, Tony had found me. Or—he'd found Maggie.

'I had no way of knowing whether he was nuts or not; whether he might go to the cops. Maybe that sounds paranoid, but I don't think it's so ridiculous. People have gone to prison for much lesser things than accusations of child-killing.

'A quiet, small-town existence. An unexpected Facebook message, jolting her back to the past. A history she's reluctant to revisit- dark memories and unspoken trauma, bruised thighs and warning knocks on bedroom walls, unfathomable loss.

'She became a new person a long time ago. What happens when buried stories are dragged into the light?

'This epic novel from the two-time Sydney Morning Herald Young Novelist of the Year is a masterwork of tragedy and heartbreak-the story of a life in full. Sublimely wrought in devastating detail, Bodies of Light confirms Jennifer Down as one of the writers defining her generation.' (Publication summary)

'Until recently, I had not read Reaching Tin River, though I had admired several other novels by Thea Astley. If I had investigated its premise beforehand – a woman becomes obsessed with a long-dead man she glimpses in an archival photograph of early settlers – I am not certain I would have chosen to read it. Frankly, I’ve had my fill of novels about dead white men, of novels that romanticise our colonial past. And yet I should have known that I would be safe in Astley’s hands.'  (Introduction)

'Until recently, I had not read Reaching Tin River, though I had admired several other novels by Thea Astley. If I had investigated its premise beforehand – a woman becomes obsessed with a long-dead man she glimpses in an archival photograph of early settlers – I am not certain I would have chosen to read it. Frankly, I’ve had my fill of novels about dead white men, of novels that romanticise our colonial past. And yet I should have known that I would be safe in Astley’s hands.' (Introduction)

'Gathering stories to piece together a family history.'

In Coarsegold our life was slow and small. Lux was the one who'd suggested the move, but she was the one who went crazy with it. I took a job teaching at Mariposa Country High. She worked as a receptionist in a motel in Oakhurst, seven or eight miles up. She dyed her hair the colour of sunshine sometime round then. I remember us in the bathroom of the old new house. Her hair was wrapped in plastic. She was sitting on the edge of the tub, one foot propped on the enamel and the other lifting the linoleum from the floor where it was coming unstuck. We were both smoking cigarettes, both in our underwear. The window was open.' (Introduction)

' this was the part of the memory she didn't tell anyone :  him standing in the drive, ready to burn. The silence aster she cut the engine. The country darkness was a heavy clean black, the stars sharp, but she was washed with light from the porch and her car. We she got closer she saw he was trembling, shivering, crying; wild hair and eys, jerry can in his hands. (Introduction)

'When Johnny told me his mother was dying, really dying, I didn't know at first what he meant. 

'They said ten months first'  he said. 'Then they said three. Now they are speaking in  weeks.' 

Speaking in weeks. Like that was a language.

(Introduction)

' At the end of my shift I put on a fresh pot of coffee and have a cup with JJ. We always do when we work together. He's my favourite of the cooks. Today he tells me a story about his granddaughter. Last week it was her third birthday. He phoned her in the morning. She was confused, he says. She kept saying, 'But Poppy, where did my two go?' He chuckles when he says it and I can tell he really loves her.' (Introduction)

'Gideon came to pick me up from the train in Sheffield. He was standing by the kiosk holding his phone. I had the upper hand of the person who sees first. He hadn't changed. Same curly dark head. greying at the temples since I'd known him; same unfashionable wire-rimed glasses. Same posture: he had the faux-casual stance of the lanky man who was bullied as a child. i had the uncharitable thought that he could do with some sunlight. He waved when he saw me.' (Introduction)

'Delaney's mom has bought tampons for me since I was twelve because I've always been too embarrassed to ask Pop or Luther. Delaney brings them to school for me in the drugstore paper bag. Last time she gave me a jar of Vaseline, too, and told me it'd make it hurt less next time Ray tried to stick it into me. The Vaseline had a blue strip on its lid to show it hadn't been opened. It snapped apart easily enough. The surface of the jelly inside was smooth, calling out for me to plug my finger into it. It smelled like glue or something eles you might use around the house. i put it in my bedside drawer. Luther wasn't around to find it and ask me about it. He was in Colorado.' (Introduction)

'Usually we took turns but sometimes Foggo wanted her to himself. Once he called it, that was it.' (Introduction)

'1996'

'In the morning we walk all the way tot he beach to count puffer fish. Me five, her four, plus a dead rat. Lally crouches and pokes it with a stick. There are maggots squirming there and it makes me feel crook. It's the second day of the school holidays. It's not raining, but it's so cold the air feels wet. Lally picks up twigs and holds them like cigarettes. Her breath comes in clouds. I can tell she's trying to be grown up but she looks constipated.' (Introduction)

'The characters in Jennifer Down’s Pulse Points live in small dusty towns, glittering exotic cities and slow droll suburbs; they are mourners, survivors and perpetrators. 

'In the award-winning ‘Aokigahara’, a young woman travels to the sea of trees in Japan to say goodbye. In ‘Coarsegold’, a woman conducts an illicit affair while her recovering girlfriend works the overnight motel shift in the middle of nowhere. In ‘Dogs’, Foggo runs an unruly gang of bored, cruel boys with a scent for fresh meat. In ‘Pressure Okay’ a middle-aged man goes to the theatre, gets a massage, remembers his departed wife, navigates the long game of grief with his adult daughter.' (Publication Summary)

'Ramesh had known Gerry for years - eight in fact, as long as he and Henry had been together - but this was, in a way, like meeting him all over again.' (Introduction)