Between a Wolf and a Dog
Overview
WINNER OF THE 2017 VICTORIAN PREMIER'S LITERARY AWARD FOR FICTION
WINNER OF THE 2016 UNIVERSITY OF QUEENSLAND FICTION BOOK AWARD
SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2017 STELLA PRIZE
ONE OF BOOKPEOPLE’S ‘100 BEST AUSTRALIAN BOOKS OF THE 21ST CENTURY’
‘Whenever I need reminding of the preciousness of ordinary life I return to this stunning novel of forgiveness and family, which gives clear, beautiful voice to the fierce luck of being alive.’
Charlotte Wood
Ester is a family therapist with an appointment book that catalogues the anxieties of the middle class: loneliness, relationships, death. She spends her days helping others find happiness, but her own family relationships are tense and frayed. Estranged from both her sister, April, and her ex-husband, Lawrence, Ester wants to fall in love again. Meanwhile, April is struggling through her own directionless life; Lawrence’s reckless past decisions are catching up with him; and Ester and April's mother, Hilary, is about to make a choice that will profoundly affect them all.
Taking place largely over one rainy day in Sydney, and rendered with evocative and powerful prose, the multi-award-winning Between a Wolf and a Dog is a celebration of the best in all of us — our capacity to live in the face of ordinary sorrows, and to draw strength from the transformative power of art.
Details
- Format
- Size
- Extent
- ISBN
- RRP
- Pub date
- Rights held
- Paperback
- 198mm x 129mm
- 272 pages
- 9781761380778
- AUD$24.99
- 9 January 2024
- World
Categories
Awards
- Winner of the 2016 The University of Queensland Fiction Book Award
- Winner of the 2017 Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Fiction
- Shortlisted for the 2017 Stella Prize
- Longlisted for the 2017 Indie Book Awards, Fiction
- Shortlisted for the 2017 Australian Literature Society Gold Medal
- Shortlisted for the 2017 Australian Book Industry Awards, Literary Fiction Book of the Year
Praise
‘Blain is a writer of such lucidity and strength that her characters speak, undeniably, for themselves … What makes it possible to contain tragedy in words, so that the reader enters into the experience and passes through it, cleansed? The Greek playwrights had their own answers to this question; but the question, I suspect, is far older than their version of it. Each generation of authors must find the right words for writing about death. Part of the reason Between a Wolf and a Dog succeeds so well is that everything in the novel is heartfelt without being in the least sentimental.’
‘[An] elegant, intelligent and affecting novel from a writer at the height of her powers.’
About the Author
Georgia Blain published novels for adults and young adults, essays, short stories, and a memoir. Her first novel was the bestselling Closed for Winter, which was made into a feature film. Her books have been shortlisted for numerous awards including the NSW, Victorian, and SA Premiers’ Literary Awards, the ALS Gold Medal, the Stella Prize, and the Nita B. Kibble Award for her memoir Births Deaths Marriages. Georgia’s works include The Secret Lives of Men, Too Close to Home, and the YA novel Darkwater. In 2016, Georgia published Between a Wolf and a Dog and the YA novel Special (Penguin Random House Australia). Between a Wolf and a Dog was shortlisted for the 2017 Stella Prize, and was awarded the 2017 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Fiction and the 2016 University of Queensland Fiction Book Award. Georgia passed away in December 2016.
