AustLit

'I was a victim of child sexual abuse. It occurred more than forty years ago, when I was just thirteen years old. This is the story about what happened to me when I was a young teenager, how I coped with it, how I kept it to myself, how I eventually fought back and how - after decades of living with the impact of the abuse - I decided one day, four decades after the events, to finally seek justice. It's also about what happened next.

'This story has a happy ending.

'For forty years David Meagher harboured a secret. Then, in mid 2018, a text message from an old school friend forced him to confront his past and finally deal with it.

'Secrets and Lies is a story about child sexual abuse. The culture that enabled it. How the perpetrator groomed his victims. How it finally came to an end. And how four decades after the crimes were committed his victims embarked on a successful two-year journey to bring the offender to justice.

'David Meagher delivers an intimate account of the lasting impact of child sexual abuse on survivors. From growing up gay in a censorious and very Catholic suburban environment to struggles with mental health and substance use - Secrets and Lies tells the full account of child sexual abuse. Meagher's story, however, is ultimately one of hope and even a bit of humour. After all, it has a happy ending, or as near to one as is possible under the circumstances.' (Publication summary)

'Malli has an anxiety disorder that renders her unable to speak outside her own home. The highlight of her life is a long-standing weekly phone call with her younger brother, Surya, who is studying in Australia, and whose updates bring colour to her days. When Surya misses their weekly call for the first time, Malli’s quiet life is thrown into disarray.

'Seeking answers online, Malli is grateful when a user on a missing persons forum, Nayan, offers to help. As days pass without word from Surya, Malli decides she must travel to Australia to find out what has happened to him, and the unconventional and outspoken Nayan offers to accompany her.

'In Sydney, student life is less glamorous and more precarious than Surya had imagined. At the restaurant where he lives and works, Surya feels he can endure the squalid living conditions and the abysmal pay if it will secure him the elusive work visa which will allow him to stay in the country. But when a racist customer up-ends the knife-edge hierarchy at the restaurant, it sets off a chain of events that will see Surya committing a reckless act of love, risking everything for which he has worked so hard.

'Set between Bengaluru and Sydney, The Days Toppled Over is a powerful exploration of mental health, family, connecting and how international students live in Australia. With a rich sense of place, a memorable cast of characters, and a good dose of humour, it illuminates how we all need friends and contact with other humans – and how these simple things can result in transformation.'(Publication summary)

'Why We Are Here is a love story revelling in the beauty and solace of the natural world, embracing the bonds between humans and celebrating the empathy and wisdom provided by dogs.

'When life knocks you down, have faith in Dog.

'After her partner and father die in quick succession, BB moves to a glamorous, condemned beachside apartment at the edge of a glittering city so memory-saturated it might be a mirage. Her plan? To rediscover the person she was before finding, and losing, the love of her life. To heal she’ll party like it’s 1999, walk her motley dog, Baby, and surrender to the simple joys of life alone by the sea.

'When a neighbour mistakes her for a dog trainer, and enlists her in correcting the murderous tendencies of his Doberman, BB feels close to a meaningful new life. Harnessing the tenets of Cesar Millan the dog whisperer, and other less canine-centric canons, she helps local dogs and their wealthy, oblivious owners to distinguish between the things they can and cannot change. She even takes tentative steps towards new intimacies—with safely unavailable Franz, and sultry, free-spirited Vera.

'But life in Balboa Bay is increasingly surreal. Baby is sending telepathic messages. A nearby prison quotes philosophers over the intercom. The other dog trainers think BB is scab labour. And somewhere on her street there's a dog that sounds like the wind.

'Cinematic, heart-breaking, often hilarious, Why We Are Here is a singular love story for strange days. Doyle's witty prose revels in the solace of the natural world, in conversing with writers who have lost and endured, and above all in the profound connection between a woman and her dog.' (Publication summary)

'Florida kitsch swirls together with magical realism in this glittering debut novel about a young Black and Indigenous woman who learns to change the color of her skin

'Gabrielle has always had a complicated relationship with her mother Tallulah, one marked by intimacy and resilience in the face of a volatile patriarch. Everything in their home has been bleached a cold white—from the cupboards filled with sheets and crockery to the food and spices Tallulah cooks with. Even Gabrielle, who inherited the ability to change the color of her skin from her mother, is told to pass into white if she doesn't want to upset her father.

'But this vital mother-daughter bond implodes when Tallulah is hospitalized for a mental health crisis. Separated from her mother for the first time in her life, Gabrielle must learn to control the temperamental shifts in her color on her own.

'Meanwhile, Gabrielle is spending a year after high school focusing on her piano lessons, an extracurricular her father is sure will make her a more appealing candidate for pre med programs. Her instructor, a queer, dark-skinned woman named Dominique, seems to encapsulate everything Gabrielle is missing in her life—creativity, confidence, and perhaps most importantly, a nurturing sense of love. Together, they plan to get Gabrielle away from her chaotic household by applying to music schools abroad.

'Following a young woman looking for a world beyond her family's carefully-coded existence, Notes on Her Color is a lushly written and haunting tale that shows how love, in its best sense, can be a liberating force from destructive origins.'(Publication summary)

'I'm Aboriginal. I'm just not the Aboriginal person a lot of people want or expect me to be.

'What does it mean to be Aboriginal? Why is Australia so obsessed with notions of identity? Anita Heiss, successful author and passionate campaigner for Aboriginal literacy, was born a member of the Wiradjuri nation of central New South Wales, but was raised in the suburbs of Sydney and educated at the local Catholic school. She is Aboriginal - however, this does not mean she likes to go barefoot and, please, don't ask her to camp in the desert. After years of stereotyping Aboriginal Australians as either settlement dwellers or rioters in Redfern, the Australian media have discovered a new crime to charge them with: being too "fair-skinned" to be an Australian Aboriginal. Such accusations led to Anita's involvement in one of the most important and sensational Australian legal decisions of the 21st-century when she joined others in charging a newspaper columnist with breaching the Racial Discrimination Act. He was found guilty, and the repercussions continue.

'In this deeply personal memoir, told in her distinctive, wry style, Anita Heiss gives a first-hand account of her experiences as a woman with an Aboriginal mother and Austrian father, and explains the development of her activist consciousness.' (From the publisher's website.)

'A retelling of the life and exploits of Irish patriot John Mitchel, with a particular focus on his time in exile on Van Diemen’s Land.

'John Mitchel, Irishman, lawyer, journalist, activist and politician, is a complex character. Charged with treason in Ireland and tried by an English judge he was snuck off mainland Ireland on the day he was charged to avoid a breakout and rebellion. He was transported initially to Bermuda, then to South Africa and then to Van Diemen’s Land where as an Irishman he was supported by many and given a ticket of leave. He soon became a farmer and activist and was eventually secreted out of Australia to the USA, where it was felt he could be more active for the Irish cause.

'A powerful voice and force for Irish nationalism who also found himself, after landing in the US, supporting the ownership of slaves. This was partly driven by living through the Irish famine. He believed Irish workers were worse off than slaves, neither fed or paid in currency for their work. And partly seeing the absolute adherence to capitalism and the pursuit of wealth in New York. People were dying in horrific industrial and transport accidents in front of those getting wealthy and no heed was paid.

'To support her husband through all the charges against him, Jenny Mitchel, when she too could have been punished for airing her beliefs on Irish nationalism, publicly supported his campaigns. She also packed up her many children and followed her prisoner and convict husband to a number of different continents to continue to support her husband and their beliefs.

'Tom, a proud Irishman and descendant of convicts on his maternal and paternal sides, disagrees with many of Mitchel’s beliefs and behaviours and has to wrestle with these conflicts in the novel. As ever, Tom Keneally surprises readers and takes on new and challenging characters and ideas.' (Publication summary)

'Ten years on from the speech that stopped us all in our tracks – Julia Gillard's Misogyny Speech. Where were you then? And where are we now?

'Then it was done. After staying silent, I’d had my say. At no time did I feel worked up or hotly angry. I felt strong, measured, controlled. Yet emotion did play its role in the energy of the speech. The frustration that sexism and misogyny could still be so bad in the twenty-first century. The toll of not pointing it out.

'On 9 October 2012, Prime Minister Julia Gillard stood up and proceeded to make all present in Parliament House that day pay attention – and left many of them squirming in their seats. The incisive ‘misogyny speech’, as her words came to be known, challenged not only Leader of the Opposition, Tony Abbott, on his words and actions but, over time, all of us. How had we come to condone the public and private behaviours of some very public men?

'With contributions from Mary Beard, Jess Hill, Jennifer Palmieri, Katharine Murphy and members of the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership, Julia Gillard explores the history and culture of misogyny, tools in the patriarchy’s toolbox, intersectionality, and gender and misogyny in the media and politics.

Kathy Lette looks at how the speech has gained a new life on TikTok, as well as inspiring other tributes and hand-made products, and we hear recollections from Wayne Swan, Anne Summers, Deborah Mailman, Cate Blanchett, Brittany Higgins and more on where they were, and how they first encountered the speech.

'While behaviours may have improved since the misogyny speech, there remains a way to go and Julia Gillard explores the roadmap for the future with next-generation feminists Sally Scales, Chanel Contos and Caitlin Figueiredo to motivate us with that rallying cry: Not now, not ever!

'Proceeds from the book will go to the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership (GIWL).' (Publication summary)

'A very funny confessional novel set in one of the only Australian independent record stores still functioning, if barely. This is High Fidelity with a female gaze.

'Kathy has worked at beloved Brisbane indie record store Dusty's Records for half her life. She arrived as a teenager high on her dad’s supply of Led Zeppelin, stayed through her twenties and suddenly thirty is on the horizon and she’s still there, measuring her self-worth by her knowledge of the Velvet Underground’s back catalogue.

'Lately, though, cracks have been appearing in Kathy’s comfortable indie bubble. Her friends – feisty Mel, the only other woman employed at Dusty's, and straight-laced Alex, whom Kathy has known since preschool – are growing up and moving on, while she’s stuck in a cycle of record store, pub, repeat, with the rest of the Dusty's music bros. But how do you move forward when you’re stuck in a groove? And what happens when you realise that you’ve been working so hard to be part of the boys’ club that you never stopped to wonder if you should be creating a club of your own?

'Her Fidelity is a feminist coming-of-age story for anyone who has ever felt that a song understood them more than their own family, for anyone who has ever felt like the culture they love might not love them back, and for anyone who has ever turned to Stevie Nicks for advice while ignoring the sensible people around them.' (Publication summary)

'A passionate love story and an honest depiction of the self-deceptions we create to sustain the idea of connection.

'Set between England and India, Faithless tells the story of Cressida, a writer and translator, and her consuming love for Max, an enigmatic older writer – and a married man.

'Faithless charts the course of Cressida’s passion for Max from the first giddy rush of sensation when she meets him during her first year at Cambridge, to the blossoming of a desire so potent it overwhelms her, and the great stunning blows to the heart delivered by this love she must keep hidden.

'When Cressida meets Leo, she is forced to confront the tension between a life of passion and a desire for ease, between her romantic idealism and the possibility of a more steady, attainable happiness.

'Alongside the story of Cressida and Max, is the tale of Flora, a child who finds her way into Cressida’s life and heart, and forces her to confront her own capacity for love, and for deception.

'Faithless is both a passionate love story and a reflection on the nuances of attachment, the nature of desire, the different kinds of connections and relationships that sustain us, and the ways that we deceive ourselves and others and, finally, reach stumblingly toward one another.'  (Publication summary)

'May 1941. German paratroopers launch a blitzkrieg from the air against Crete. They are met with fierce defiance, the Greeks fighting back with daggers, pitchforks and kitchen knives. During the bloody eleven-day battle, Alenka a young Greek woman saves the lives of two Australian soldiers.

'Jack and Teddy are childhood friends who joined up together to see the world. Both men fall in love with Alenka. They are forced to retreat with the tattered remains of the Allied forces over the towering White Mountains. Both are among the 7000 Allied soldiers left behind in the desperate evacuation from Crete's storm-lashed southern coast. Alenka hides Jack and Teddy at great risk to herself. Her brother Axel is a Nazi sympathiser and collaborator and spies on her movements

'As Crete suffers under the Nazi jackboot, Alenka is drawn into an intense triangle of conflicting emotions with Jack and Teddy. Their friendship suffers under the strain of months of hiding and their rivalry for her love. Together, they join the resistance and fight to free the island, but all three will find themselves tested to their limits. Alenka must choose whom to trust and whom to love and, in the end, whom to save.'  (Publication summary)

'Hearing a news report that a man on his morning swim has been taken by a Great White, teacher Gwen races to the beach, and finds all that remains of Jason Riley, her husband, is his swimming cap and a piece of torn, blood-stained wetsuit.

'Her shock and heartbreak are soon interrupted by a woman screeching to a halt on a motorbike. Tish screams for information, convinced it’s her husband who’s been taken by the man-eater. Gwen reassures her that Jason Riley is the man who’s perished. ‘I know! Jason Riley’s my husband!' Tish sobs.

'Needless to say, their grief is somewhat blighted by the realisation they've both been married to a bigamist. And their mutual animosity is not assuaged when they learn that Jason recently sent all his – make that their – money to a mysterious ‘business partner’ in Egypt, Skye.

'They fly to Cairo, confront Skye, and discover that not only did Jason marry her last year, but he’s stolen her life savings too.

'Till Death, or a Little Light Maiming, Do Us Part is a revenge caper that propels our double-crossed threesome through continents on the trail of truth and retribution. As they embark on a chase for their money, they build new friendships, discover much about themselves, and when closure is had they are bursting with energy for the next phase of their life.' (Publication summary)

'An electrifying collection of stories from the febrile imagination of a young writer who traverses culture, genre and form.

'A man grows tired of his open-plan office and builds a fort made of stationery. A woman's euphoria at finally achieving Desktop Zero is quickly replaced with despair. A group of copywriters dream of being poets, and a disillusioned sales executive overthinks his think piece.

'In the mind-bendingly upside-down world of Sadvertising, iPhones have feelings, brands come to life, creative directors disappear into parallel universes and lowly freelancers become immortal. It's a world where gods, ghosts and muses stalk the corridors of bland and placeless offices, and the wondrous exists alongside the mundane.

'Short, punchy and direct, Ennis Cehic's satirical fables are box-fresh and shot through with pitch-black humour, existential dread and late capitalist yearning for meaning. They grapple with love and loneliness, art and commerce, dream and reality, and reflect the absurdity of the modern condition.

'Sadvertising is a surreal, subversive and utterly contemporary literary debut from an unforgettable new voice.' (Publication summary)

'How did Corporal Hitler's Luger from the First World War end up being the weapon that killed an IRA turncoat in Kempsey, New South Wales, in 1933?

'When an affluent Kempsey matron spots a young Aboriginal boy who bears an uncanny resemblance to her husband, not only does she scream for divorce, attempt to take control of the child’s future and upend her comfortable life, but the whole town seems drawn into chaos.

'A hero of the First World War has a fit at the cinema and is taken to a psychiatric ward in Sydney, his Irish farmhand is murdered, and a gay piano-playing veteran, quietly a friend to many in town, is implicated.

'Corporal Hitler's Pistol speaks to the never-ending war that began with 'the war to end all wars'. Rural communities have always been a melting pot and many are happy to accept a diverse bunch … as long as they don’t overstep. Set in a town he knows very well, in this novel Tom Keneally tells a compelling story of the interactions and relationships between black and white Australians in early twentieth-century Australia.' (Publication summary)

'Empires rise and fall, human lives are lived, collisions occur more than we will ever know, and yet the unexpected can still happen. ''Alaska, 2018, and Mike is a long way from home, nursing a wrecked knee and an unspoken grief, striking out into real estate and parenting his partner’s son. London, 1978, and Simon is an Australian fish out of water navigating adolescence during the Winter of Discontent, and drawn to an eccentric impresario next door. Washington, DC, 1928, and a retired US senator is interviewed about his time in Russia in 1916, and his mission to save a young heir to an empire. Vienna, 1809, and an Irish teenager on the run from the law takes refuge among composers as Napoleon besieges and shells the city. Hong Kong, 2019, and estranged brothers Mike and Simon reunite in midlife to face the secrets of the past, and reconnect in more ways than one.

'Empires rise and fall, human lives play out, encounters, collisions and connections occur more than we can ever know – and yet, the unexpected can still happen.

'Endlessly compelling and inventive, Empires is a masterful novel in five parts with boys and men at its heart. Spanning centuries and crossing continents, it explores the empires we build, the way we see ourselves, the narratives we construct and the interconnectedness of all things. This is Nick Earls at his finest.' (Publication summary)

'The disappearance of Bo Rabbit in 1984 left the Rabbit women crippled by grief. Bo’s mother, Rosemary, and Bo’s younger sister, Delia, became disjointed and dysfunctional, parting ways not long after Delia turned eighteen.

'Now a teacher at a Queensland college, Delia’s life is dissolving. She gave up on her own art, began a relationship with a student, and is struggling to raise her three growing children, Olive, Charlie and Benjamin. And now she must also care for her mother.

'Despite it all, the Rabbits are managing, precariously. Or, they were until sixteen-year-old Charlie Rabbit disappears in the middle of a blinding heatwave. The family reels from the loss, and struggles to cope as the children’s estranged father, Ed, re-enters their lives.

'Only nothing is quite as it seems, and Charlie’s disappearance soon proves to be just that – a disappearance, or, rather, an unexpected bout of invisibility he’s unable to reverse.

'The Rabbits is a multigenerational family story with a dose of magical realism. It is about family secrets, art, very mild superpowers, loneliness and the strange connections we make in the places we least expect.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Leading Australian writers respond to the challenges of 2020, to create a vital cultural record of these extraordinary times.

'Writers, scientists, historians, journalists and commentators consider subjects as broad as culture and the arts, working as a doctor, travel, domestic violence, security, immigration, the death of a loved one, geopolitics, distance and zoom to ensure we never forget the experience of this pile-on of a year.

'Including original pieces from Lenore Taylor, Nyadol Nuon, Christos Tsiolkas, Melissa Lucashenko, Billy Griffiths, Jess Hill, Kim Scott, Brenda Walker, Jane Rawson, Omar Sakr, Richard McGregor, Jennifer Mills, Gabrielle Chan, John Birmingham, Tim Flannery, Rebecca Giggs, Kate Cole-Adams, George Megalogenis, James Bradley, Alison Croggan, Melanie Cheng, Kirsten Tranter, Tom Griffiths, Joelle Gergis and Delia Falconer.' (Publication summary)

'What do you do when you’re told you’ve got terminal cancer at 50? Take up crochet, get religion and bow out gracefully? Or upend your life and spend every remaining minute exploring new pleasures?

'Ruby has always been the generous mediator among her friends, family and colleagues, which is why they have all turned up to celebrate her 50th birthday. But after a few too many glasses of champers, Ruby’s speech doesn’t exactly go to plan. Instead of delivering the witty and warm words her guests are expecting, Ruby takes her moment in the spotlight to reveal what she really thinks of every one of them. She also accuses her husband, Harry, of having an affair.

'Saving the best till last, Ruby lambasts her octogenarian mother for a lifetime of playing her three daughters against each other. It’s blisteringly brutal. As the stunned gathering gawks at Ruby, the birthday girl concludes her bravura monologue with the throwaway comment that she has terminal cancer. She has cashed in her life savings and plans on taking her two sisters cruising into the sunset for a dose of Husband Replacement Therapy. Courageous? Or ruthlessly selfish?

'But, do they even want to go with her now that she's cast herself off into social Siberia?' (Publication summary)

'Sonny and Vince have always known each other. It took two years of juvie, a crazy mother (her), a violent father (him) and a porn stash for them to meet again.

'Sonny is in her last year of school and with protective parents she is forced to watch the world from her bedroom window. She has a habit of falling hopelessly in love with just about anyone. Vince is handsome, brash, a leader in the gangs, who became a legend after he was taken away by juvenile justice two years ago. Now, Vince is back. One problem – they have not been friends since they were children. Growing up in the vertigo of 1990's Cabramatta, of households which harbour histories and parents who are difficult to love, they stumble upon each other once more.

'While sharing the ugly and scary details of Western Sydney in this time, Vivian Pham also illuminates the beauty, hope, possibility, kindness and love that can spring from small gestures and strong friendships.' (Publication summary)

'After life as a boy soldier in South Sudan, fighting battles in Ethiopia and refugee camps in Kenya, Ayik Chut found himself a refugee in Toowoomba, Queensland.

'With a FOREWORD from Ray Martin.

'As a boy living in the Dinka tribe in what is now South Sudan, the youngest country in the world, Ayik Chut Deng was a member of the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army (SPLA). During his time as a child soldier, he witnessed unspeakable violence and was regularly tortured by older boys. At age nineteen, he and his family escaped the conflict in Sudan and resettled in Toowoomba, Australia. But adjusting to his new life in small-town Queensland was more difficult than he anticipated. He was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder that was misdiagnosed as schizophrenia, leading to years of erratic behaviour on the wrong medication. He struggled with drugs and alcohol, fought with his family and found himself in trouble with the law before he came to the painful realisation that his behaviour was putting his life, as well as the lives of his loved ones, at risk.' (Publication summary)