AustLit

'Six teenagers. An empty shopping centre. No Wi-Fi. And … a baby? Acclaimed author Tegan Bennett Daylight’s first novel for young adults reconceives Lord of the Flies for Gen Z.

'What happens when a group of teenagers is stranded indefinitely in a shopping centre, alone? With all the stuff they could possibly want … and a baby? Is it paradise – or hell?

'With no phones and no internet, Shannon and her fellow prisoners are completely disconnected from the outside world… and their online lives. It’s hard to say whether they’ll be driven to delinquency, or – even worse – forced to make friends irl. Will the limitless bubble tea, Maccas, high-end trainers and tech equipment be enough to keep the six teens safe and happy until they can find a way out, or is this all the start of something more sinister?

'Acclaimed author Tegan Bennett Daylight’s first novel for young adults reconceives Lord of the Flies for Gen Z, and in a suspenseful, character-driven and enthralling story, reveals that surviving in isolation just might bring us closer together.' (Publication summary)

'A chorus of voices about one of the country’s most prominent Indigenous activists is a glorious kaleidoscope of testimony.'

'When I told my mother I was bored, she would start a pilgrimage around the house. She’d go from room to room, shelf to shelf, and come back with a pile of eight or 10 books. She’d sit on the edge of my bed and slide the pile apart, describing each book. Some of them I knew I would never read, either because I’d already tried them and found their first few pages dull, or because the lettering on the cover or the font inside was too small, suggesting a density of thought that I would find impenetrable. But in general every pile contained two or three books I could read, and boredom would be held off for another day or two.' (Introduction)

'A long and intimate relationship with reading has taught acclaimed writer Tegan Bennett Daylight that - in life as in books - the delight is in the details.

'Tegan Bennett Daylight has led a life in books – as a writer, a teacher and a critic, but first and foremost as a reader. Reading has been her inspiration and solace, her recreation and profession, her poison and her medicine.

'In this deeply intimate and insightful work, Daylight describes how her rich storehouse of reading has nourished her life, and how her life informs her reading. In both, she shows us that it’s the small points of connection – the details - that really matter: what we see when someone close to us dies, when we give birth, when we fall in love, when we make friends. The details are what we can share and compare and carry with us.

'Daylight writes with invigorating candour and compassion about her mother’s last days; her own experiences of childbearing and its aftermath (in her celebrated essay ‘Vagina’); her long admiration of Helen Garner and George Saunders; and her great loves and friendships. Each chapter is a revelation, and a celebration of how books offer not an escape from ‘real life’ but a richer engagement with the business of living.

'The result is a work that will truly deepen your relationship with books, and with other readers. The delight is in the details.'

Source: publisher's blurb

'For most of us who care to think about such things, the teenager was invented by JD Salinger in 1951. Of course, before he was described in literature, the teenager was a naturally occurring phenomenon in postwar America. As that country became the world's richest, a whole generation of young white people emerged who did not need to go immediately to work, whose parents' relative wealth and resulting access to astounding inventions like the washing machine and the motor car had created a new leisure. What Holden Caulfield has that young people did not have before him is time to think. Like a 1940s Hamlet he wanders the streets of New York, out of the jurisdiction of parents and teachers, free to ponder the 'phonies' he has known, free to feel miserable, free to feel trapped by the future his parents imagine for him.' (Publication abstract)

P'ark’s bold, glittering descriptions and her vigorously alive characters are forever lodged in my consciousness.'

'Georgia Blain’s final novel, Between a Wolf and a Dog, was published in 2016 and is currently shortlisted for the 2017 Stella Prize. Sadly, Georgia passed away from a brain tumour in December 2016. To honour her shortlisting and celebrate the novel, Georgia’s friend and fellow writer Tegan Bennett Daylight shares this reflection.' (Introduction)

'Tegan Bennett Daylight on the sensual detail of life.

'Aoife Clifford, James Bradley, DBC Pierre and Tegan Bennett Daylight talk about whether writers need mentors, what you should and shouldn't expect, and other writerly wisdom.'  (Publication abstract)

'Six Bedrooms is about growing up; about discovering sex; and about coming of age. Full of glorious angst, embarrassment and small achievements.

'Hot afternoons on school ovals, the terrifying promise of losing your virginity, sneaking booze from your mother's pantry, the painful sophistication and squalor of your first share house, cancer, losing a parent.

'Tegan Bennett Daylight's powerful collection captures the dangerous, tilting terrain of becoming adult. Over these ten stories, we find acute portrayals of loss and risk, of sexual longing and wreckage, blunders and betrayals. Threaded through the collection is the experience of troubled, destructive Tasha, whose life unravels in unexpected ways, and who we come to love for her defiance, her wit and her vulnerability.

'Stunningly written, and shot through with humour and menace, Six Bedrooms is a mesmerising collection of moments from adolescence through adulthood, a mix of all the potent ingredients that make up a life.' (Publication summary)