Literary Fiction

What Was Left

by Eleanor Limprecht
Ligature untapped
genre Literary Fiction

Rachel knows she’s not feeling the way she should about her new baby—the way she’d imagined she would—but no one wants to talk about it. Desperate and afraid she’ll do something terrible, she makes a radical decision: to leave the country in search of her father, who left when she was a child and from whose desertion Rachel’s never recovered. Will she find him? Will she find answers? Will answers lead her back to baby Lola and her bereft husband?

‘What Was Left takes us into territory that is still taboo – a mother leaving her child. This unsentimental and utterly honest account of what it is to struggle with becoming a parent is also a wonderfully absorbing read, a novel that I couldn’t wait to get back to each time I put it down.’ — Georgia Blain

‘You don’t need to have given birth to sympathise with Rachel’s predicament. Her perceived failure at being the perfect mother highlights many impossible pressures placed on women today. Rachel’s longing to escape means What was Left also succeeds as great travel fiction. Limprecht’s accomplished prose richly evokes the landscapes of India, Europe and the US, while also capturing the essence of Sydney. An exceptionally talented writer…’ — Emily Laidlaw, Books + Publishing

First published in 2013, What Was Left was shortlisted for the ALS Gold Medal in 2014. It went out of print with the closure of its original publisher, Sleepers Publishing.

Eleanor Limprecht is an essayist, short story writer, reviewer and novelist. She is the author of What Was Left (2013), Long Bay (2015), also in the Untapped Collection, and The Passengers (2018). Her new book, The Coast, will be published in 2022. For more information visit www.eleanorlimprecht.com.

The Wind on the Water

by Myra Morris
Ligature untapped
genre Literary Fiction

It’s the 1930s. Fran Addicott runs a country pub with her husband, Sam, in Victoria’s Mallee region. It’s not a glamorous life: the pub is old; the town struggling; and her husband—her second, she was widowed—is not all he could be. Life is a constant uphill battle, but what can she do? What should she do?

‘Fine Australian Novel’ declared The Australasian‘s reviewer, Habakkuk, on The Wind on the Water‘s original publication. ‘Miss Myra Morris is well known as a lyric poet and story-writer of rare sensitivity and insight …’ Habakkuk wrote, going on to describe the book as being ‘of really uncommon quality’.

More recently—in 2018—writing of the novel in Meanjin, Brigid Magner concluded: ‘Long out of print and virtually impossible to find second-hand, The Wind on the Water is a forgotten classic that deserves to be reprinted and introduced to a contemporary readership.’

The Wind on the Water was highly commended in the S.H. Prior Memorial Prize in 1935 and first published in 1938. An edited version was serialised in the Australian Women’s Weekly in 1939, and it was adapted for ABC Radio in 1940.

Myra Morris (1893–1966) was a poet, short story writer, children’s author, journalist and novelist.

The Young Wife

by David Martin
Ligature untapped
genre Literary Fiction

Anna is a Cypriot. Young, beautiful—and sent to Australia to marry Yannis, a man she’s never met. The Young Wife is a tender, insightful story of love, marriage and culture clash. First published in 1962.

‘A splendid piece of work. A milestone on our road to literary maturity.’ — The Sydney Morning Herald

‘Deeply impressive … the characters are memorable.’ — The Age

David Martin AM (1915–1997) was a journalist and author who wrote novels, non-fiction, poetry and children’s books. His books include The Hero of Too (1965), Frank and Francesca (1972) and the autobiography My Strange Friend (1990). He was the recipient of the Patrick White Award in 1991.

The White Woman

by Liam Davison
Ligature untapped
genre Literary Fiction

A chilling, mysterious story about a European woman rumoured to have been held captive by the Kurnai People of Gippsland in the 1840s after surviving a shipwreck, as told by a member of the search parties, many years after the event. As he speaks, it becomes apparent that the ‘truth’ surrounding these searches, supposedly taken out in ‘in defence of virtue’ and ‘civilised’ values, is as elusive as the white woman herself.

‘[The White Woman] is a finely crafted and at times profoundly sensitive narrative. It is both beguilingly simple and intricate in its pattern of myth, history and analysis of human vulnerability. Above all it is a story which coaxes you to follow a trail of imagined sightings and half-revealed clues. What is discovered is rewarding, a deeply satisfying fictionalised reworking of a historical myth by a gifted, intelligent writer.’ —Christopher Bantick, The Canberra Times

First published in 1994, The White Woman was shortlisted for The Age Book of the Year and the Victorian Premier’s Awards.

Liam Davison (1957–2014) was an award-winning novelist and short story writer. His works include The Shipwreck Party (1989), Soundings (1993), winner of the NBC Banjo Awards — NBC Banjo Award for Fiction, 1993, The White Woman (1994), The Betrayal (1999) and Collected Short Stories (2001).

The Well Dressed Explorer

by Thea Astley
Ligature untapped
genre Literary Fiction

Pompous, vain and a self-professed charmer, George Brewster moves from one unfulfilling journalism job to the next, one empty relationship to another, his faithful wife and daughter ever the afterthought. The Well Dressed Explorer is the story of a man of his time, but as a story of toxic workplaces and an Australia where comfort and self-interest breed men like George, it might well feel familiar to a new generation of readers.

Described as a ‘formidable and enduring novel’ by the American magazine Publishers Weekly on its original publication in 1962, The Well Dressed Explorer won the Miles Franklin Literary Award at same year. Thea Astley AO (1925–2004) went on to win the Miles Franklin Literary Award three more times, for the novels The Slow Natives (1965), The Acolyte (1972) which is also part of the Untapped Collection, and Drylands (1999). Other awards for her work include The Age Book of the Year, the New South Wales Premier’s Literary Award’s Christina Stead Prize for Fiction, and the Queensland Premier’s Literary Award for Best Fiction Book. She also received multiple personal awards including, in 1989, Patrick White Award and in 2002, a New South Wales Premier’s Special Award for a lifetime’s achievement in literature.

The White Garden

by Carmel Bird
Ligature untapped
genre Literary Fiction

‘It is an intensely emotional experience to read The White Garden; although an intensely aesthetic one as well. Dr. Ambrose Goddard is a psychologist who sadistically abuses his patients. (He is based on a real-life Australian case of about a generation ago). His air of superiority and professional know-how masks a desperate and seemingly imperturbable desire to control others, especially young women…’ So begins academic Nicholas Birns’s review of The White Garden in the literary journal Antipodes. He concludes: ‘Bird’s book is a splendid, plangent, and memorable achievement, and a permanent contribution to Australian literature.’

Inspired by the deep sleep therapy scandal in 1960s Sydney, The White Garden begins Carmel Bird’s compelling trilogy examining the dark dangers of charismatic leaders. First published in 1995, it was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award, the NBC Banjo Awards, and the Aurealis Awards.

Novelist, essayist and non-fiction writer Carmel Bird was the recipient the Patrick White Award in 2016. Her works include The Blue Bird Café (1990) and the thematically-linked Mandala trilogy The White Garden (1995), Red Shoes (1998) and Cape Grimm (2004). Her most recent novel is the acclaimed Field of Poppies (2019) of which Robert Drewe wrote: ‘How to describe Field of Poppies? A lush feast of wit and wisdom? Writing so rich you simply want to devour it? A forensic examination of an Australian country town? Literary tour de force will have to do.’

The Story of the Year of 1912 in the Village of Elza Darzins

by Thea Welsh
Ligature untapped
genre Literary Fiction

It’s the 1980s and the Cold War is still under way when the State Film Board acquires a rediscovered film from an obscure Latvian director. It’s believed to be a masterpiece. Hired to do the translation thanks to her Latvian background, Erika realises that if she accurately translates what she hears, the film doesn’t make any sense. So as she writes the subtitles she makes a few adjustments … and then has to live with the consequences.

A vibrant and witty evocation of the intensity and eccentricities of the Australian film industry in the 1980s, and a meditation on the meaning of authorship.

‘Highly amusing yet deeply perceptive … what a marvellous first novel!’ — Margaret Pomeranz, The Movie Show

‘… written with remarkable assurance and panache, as exciting at times as a thriller. Without taking itself too seriously, it explores such serious issues as the viewer’s role in creating art, the ownership of intellectual work … and when it’s OK to go to bed with someone else’s boyfriend.’ — Kate Veitch, Sydney Morning Herald

‘… a short read with long and rewarding reverberations’ — Mary Rose Liverani, The Australian

‘Welsh has a great deal of fun with the introverted and frenetic film world, where projects rise and fall on the whims of ethereal beings who only exist on the telephone, where friends and enemies swap sides for the best of expedient reasons …’ — Peter Fuller, The Canberra Times

First published in 1990, The Story of the Year of 1912 in the Village of Elza Darzins won the NBC Banjo Award for Fiction that same year and the Commonwealth Writers Prize Best First Book in the South-East Asia and South Pacific region in 1991. Thea Welsh’s other works include the novels Welcome Back (1996), The President’s Wife (2010), and the delightful The Cat Who Looked at the Sky (2003), a memoir of shared cat ‘ownership’.

The Schoonermaster’s Dance

by Alan Gould
Ligature untapped
genre Literary Fiction

Sarah Tilber, a Canberra librarian, becomes obsessed with learning about her ancestor Charles Tilber, a schoonermaster. She’s so obsessed that she leaves her job, her husband, and her country in search of traces of this mysterious man. Then she, too, vanishes – apparently somewhere between Chile and Peru. Can her long-suffering friend Jenn find out what happened?

The Schoonermaster’s Dance was first published in 2000. In 2001, it was joint winner of ACT Book of the Year (with Dorothy Johnston’s The Trojan Dog) and joint winner of the Courier Mail Book of the Year (with Peter Carey’s True History of the Kelly Gang).

The blog ANZ Litlovers, reviewing the book in 2020, notes that: ‘This wonderful book is long out of print.’ No longer, thanks to the Untapped Collection.

Alan Gould is an award-winning poet and novelist. His works include To the Burning City (1991 – winner of the NBC Banjo Award for Fiction and also part of the Untapped Collection), The Past Completes Me (2005 – winner of the Grace Leven Poetry Prize), andThe Seagrass Spiral (2012 – joint winner of the Canberra Critics Circle Award for Writing). In 1999, Gould won the Philip Hodgins Memorial Medal.

The Outcasts of Foolgarah

by Frank Hardy
Ligature untapped
genre Literary Fiction

A ‘illegal’ strike by two garbos has unexpected and far reaching consequences in this outrageous political satire. By turns, The Outcasts of Foolgarah is angry, funny, offensive, outrageous and disturbing. 

On its first publication, Geoffrey Dutton wrote of The Outcasts of Foolgarah that it was ‘more genuinely Australian than The Weird Mob and much wider in the range of its humour and satire than Here’s Luck.’ He went on. ‘They’re a Weird Mob caught the idiom but flattered us, Hardy knows the idiom even better and doesn’t flatter anyone.’ Certainly not politicians!

Frank Hardy (1917–1994) was a journalist, playwright, scriptwriter and award-winning novelist. His works include the bestselling Power Without Glory (1950), the powerful The Unlucky Australians (1968 – also in the Untapped Collection), and the internationally acclaimed But the Dead Are Many: A Novel in Fugue Form (1975). He was described by Jack Waterford in The Canberra Times as ‘a socialist with a streak of the larrikin, a supporter of the underdog and one of Australia’s best yarners and story-tellers’.