About the Book:
From the author of the multi-award-winning bestseller Between a Wolf and a Dog, a powerful collection of previously unpublished stories.
A sister is haunted by the consequences of a simple mistake. A daughter searches for certainty as her mother's memory degrades. An encounter at a house party changes the course of a life.
In We All Lived in Bondi Then, beloved Australian author Georgia Blain returns to her resonant themes of relationships and family, illness and health, love and death. Composed in Blain's final years, these nine stories grapple with large questions on a human scale, brimming with her trademark acuity, nuance, and warmth.
Published by Scribe
Released 30 January 2024
My Thoughts:
What a joy it was to read this collection of previously unpublished stories written by the late, and certainly great, Georgia Blain. Each story was, to me, a slice of perfection. Her resonant themes of relationships and family, illness and health, love and death are very much all I seem to want to read about of late, stories that are driven by character and revolve around theme in place of tiresome plots that have been seen over and over. I'm getting more and more fussy with each passing month.
'It's strange how often we long for life to move forward; I just have to get through this, we think, as though the past, with all its fears and fuck-ups and anxieties, can be completely left behind, neat, contained, never spilling over the line we imagine is waiting for us. And yet the past is always there, hovering at the edge, teasing us, reappearing when we least expect it, and then sliding away again, where it waits, the warmth of its breath reminding us that it still lives.'
Each story is a complete picture, everything you need to know, with no threads left hanging, no questions left unanswered. Tiny little masterpieces. What a skilful writer Georgia Blain was. How lucky we are to have been left with something more from her.
Thanks to the publisher for the review copy.
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