A new edition of Beverley Farmer's classic 1980 debut, out of print for many years. Alone captures the emergence of one of Australia's most powerful and distinctive writers.

Set in Melbourne in the late 1950s, and taking place over the course of two days and nights, Alone chronicles the feelings of obsession and hopelessness, isolation and desire provoked by the ending of an intimate relationship. A young woman, a fledgling writer, recalls her passion for her female lover, who has left her. She is estranged from her family and has dropped out of university, and is contemplating ending her life. As she travels through the night-time streets, industrial areas and boarding houses of a Melbourne fallen into economic depression and cultural malaise, she reflects on the days and months past that have brought her to despair.

Written in a style threaded with gothic motifs, and shadowed by the constant threat of sexual violence, Beverley Farmer's debut novel captures...]]> Tue, 19 Aug 1980 09:40:29 +0300 https://fiction.library.land/beverley-farmer/563658-a_body_of_water.html https://fiction.library.land/beverley-farmer/563658-a_body_of_water.html

A Body of Water was published thirty years ago, in 1990, and has long been out of print. The writing of the book takes place over a year, and portrays a complete cycle in the writer's life. It begins on her forty-sixth birthday, in a period of emotional inhibition and sterility—she hasn't written for a long time—and also of loneliness—her marriage has broken down, and she is living on her own. By the end of the cycle the narrator has written five short stories, and poems, which are included in the book, alongside thoughts about the writing process, journal entries, excerpts from books she has been reading, spiritual meditations, and finely detailed observations on her friendships and the life around her. The title 'a body of water' could be taken to refer to the book's settings along the Bellarine Peninsula in southern Victoria, with its bays, the outer harbour, and the lighthouse, standing like a sentinel at the entrance to the ocean. It also suggests...]]> Sun, 01 Nov 2020 18:27:17 +0200 https://fiction.library.land/beverley-farmer/643011-home_time.html https://fiction.library.land/beverley-farmer/643011-home_time.html

Set across Australia, Greece and the USA in the mid-twentieth century, this collection of fourteen stories follows a disparate series of people at critical junctures, grappling with loneliness, fear, belonging, mental illness, disability, aging and longing. An emotionally challenging and deeply rewarding read.

First published in 1985, Home Time was shortlisted for both the National Book Council Award for Australian Literature in 1985, and The Age Book of the Year for Imaginative Writing.

Beverley Farmer (1941–2018) was a novelist and short story writer. Her works have won and been shortlisted for multiple awards and include Alone (1980), Milk: Stories (1983), A Body of Water (1990) and The Seal Woman (1992). In 2009, Farmer won the Patrick White Award.]]> Wed, 24 Mar 2021 22:20:32 +0200 https://fiction.library.land/beverley-farmer/162146-this_water.html https://fiction.library.land/beverley-farmer/162146-this_water.html
his is likely to be the last work by Beverley Farmer, one of Australia's great prose stylists, and a pioneer of women's writing, in her exploration of feminine concerns, and her use of different literary forms – novel, short story, poetry, essay, journal, myth and fairy tale.This Water is a collection of five tales, three of them novella length, each a fragmentary love story with a nameless woman at the centre, and a mythic dimension (Greek or Celtic, folklore or fable) rooted in the power of nature. Water and stone, ice and fire, light and darkness play an important role in all the stories, as do other motifs, closely related to women's experience, blood, birth, possession and release, marriage and singularity. One tale, set on the south coast of Victoria, is animated by the legend of the Great Silkie, following Sylvia Plath and Joan Baez; another finds its rebellious princess in Lake Annaghmakerrig in Ireland; a third has Clytemnestra as its central figure, mourning...]]> Wed, 13 Nov 1996 19:51:32 +0200