Literary Fiction

The Montforts

by Martin Boyd
Ligature untapped
genre Literary Fiction

Told with wit and pace, Martin Boyd’s The Montforts follows five generations of the Montfort family, members of Australia’s ‘colonial aristocracy’ as they navigate—and become part of—a new world.

The novel’s concerns—the complex relationships between patriotism and civilisation, art and religion, the individual and his past, love and romance—are timeless.

First published under the pen name Martin Mills in 1928 with the title The Madeleine Heritage, The Montforts won the ALS Gold Medal in 1928. This edition was revised by the author and published in 1963. It includes an introduction from Brenda Niall, author of his biography, Martin Boyd: A Life (1988).

Martin Boyd’s other highly acclaimed novels include Lucinda Brayford (1946) and The Cardboard Crown (1952).

The Mindless Ferocity of Sharks

by Brett D’Arcy
Ligature untapped
genre Literary Fiction

Floaty-boy lives in a Western Australian coastal town, where the surf is great, the economy is dire and his home life is tricky. His dad’s a surfing legend but has no interest in growing up, his mum’s trying to deal with his dad and a baby, and his older brother’s run off somewhere—probably in search of a wave. And there’s something going on with Floaty-boy. He’s on the kind of medication that can numb a person and his view of the world isn’t like anyone else’s. The water helps, especially swimming at night. When the sharks do.

This may be sounding a little Tim Winton-esque, but critic Peter Pierce, writing in Australian Book Review in 2003 when the novel was first published, suggests it’s more ‘Tim Winton on speed’. Pierce had, in fact, begun the review by announcing: ‘Brett D’Arcy’s novel, arrestingly titled The Mindless Ferocity of Sharks, is one of the most unusual and accomplished to be published in Australian for years.’ He went on to write, ‘The management of Floaty-boy’s narration is the technical triumph of the novel. The events around him have the heightened and disconnected qualities of a dream. … It is as though we are dropped into a hyper-naturalistic stage set.’

The Mindless Ferocity of Sharks won the Western Australian Premier’s Award for fiction in 2003 and was shortlisted for the Colin Roderick Award the following year. Film rights are currently under option.

Brett D’Arcy is an award-winning novelist, short story writer, essayist and critic. He lectures in the Faculty of Media, Society and Culture at Curtin University of Technology in Western Australia.

The Golden Dress

by Marion Halligan
Ligature untapped
genre Literary Fiction

Molly Pellerin wears a home made dress to a party. It’s beautiful, magical—golden. And in wearing it, she, too, is transformed. This dress is at the centre of Marion Halligan’s award-winning, globe-trotting tale of mothers, sons, lovers, and family secrets. 

‘This novel is eloquent and affecting. It is complex and, for me, the most satisfying of Halligan’s writing so far. Spanning generations of lives in Newcastle, and stretching across Sydney and Paris, it is full of serious intrigue and delicate investigations of familial matters and intimacy.’ So writes Terri-ann White in Australian Book Review at the time of The Golden Dress’ first publication. She concluded: ‘I wanted to start from the beginning again as soon as I was finished, now that I had found out so much about these characters … And when I did I recognised much more, including the sleight of hand within the narrative, and admired it even further.’

First published in 1996, The Golden Dress was shortlisted for The Age Book of the Year and the Miles Franklin Literary Award.

Marion Halligan AM is an award-winning literary critic, short story writer, food writer, children’s author and novelist. Her works include Lovers’ Knots: A Hundred-Year Novel (1992), winner of The Age Book of the Year Award, The Fog Garden (2001), The Point (2003), ACT Book of the Year, Valley of Grace (2009), ACT Book of the Year, and, most recently, Goodbye Sweetheart (2015).

The Grass Sister

by Gillian Mears
Ligature untapped
genre Literary Fiction

Trying to understand what might have happened to her sister, Ann-Clare, Avis reads through her letters. It’s been more than ten years since she disappeared in mysterious circumstances in Africa, their parents’ homeland. The story slowly reveals Ann-Clare’s history, including her tragedies, as her sister uncovers and revisits them one by one.

The Grass Sister is an evocative, moving, timeless novel about death, dying, sibling relationships—and moving forward while making sense of the past.

‘A remarkable performance which some readers will cling to like a salvation.’ Peter Craven

Award-winning novelist, essayist and children’s writer, Gillian Mears’s work includes The Mint Lawn (1991), winner of The Australian/Vogel Literary National Literary Award in 1990, and the multi-award-winning Foal’s Bread (2011). The Grass Sister was first published in 1995.

The Color of the Sky

by Peter Cowan
Ligature untapped
genre Literary Fiction

Set in a country house in Western Australia, The Color of the Sky slips between perspective of literary-minded Leon, fresh back from England and wanting to know more about his family, and that of his explorer ancestor, Tom. First published in 1986, and winner of the Western Australian Premier’s Award for Fiction.

Peter Cowan AO (1914–2002) was an academic, critic, biographer and novelist. He received a Centenary Medal for service to literature through writing, and in 1992 won the Patrick White Award.

The Cupboard under the Stairs

by George Turner
Ligature untapped
genre Literary Fiction

After spending six years in a progressive psychiatric institution being treated for depression, Harry White returns home to the small town of Treelake. He tries to readjust. But it’s the 1960s and it isn’t easy. Being a man of his time doesn’t make it easier either. Nor does the stigma of his institutionalisation. Or the problem of being married to one woman, but loving another…

The Cupboard Under the Stairs was published in 1962, the same year as the American author Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Critically acclaimed, it won the Miles Franklin Literary Award, sharing it with Thea Astley’s The Well-Dressed Explorer, which is also part of the Untapped Collection.

In addition to being a Miles Franklin-award-winning literary author, George Turner (1916–1997), was internationally known for his science fiction writing and criticism. His novel The Sea and the Summer (1987) won both the Arthur C Clarke Award and a Commonwealth Writers Prize.

The Big Fellow

by Vance Palmer
Ligature untapped
genre Literary Fiction

Politician Macy Donovan now has a successful career and marriage, seemly all he’s ever wanted, but is it enough—and can it last? When a woman from his past comes back into his orbit and, simultaneously, his past actions are put under the microscope, it’s possible that he might lose it all.

Vance Palmer (1885–1969) was an influential literary critic and award-winning novelist and, with Nettie Palmer, a champion of Australian writing. The Big Fellow was awarded the Miles Franklin Literary Award posthumously. The Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Fiction is named after him.

Taking shelter

by Jessica Anderson
Ligature untapped
genre Literary Fiction

It’s 1980s Sydney and for this group of family and friends, love and relationships are complicated. Beth wants Miles, Marcus wants Beth, Marcus’ mother isn’t wanted by anyone anymore, Kyrie wants what’s on offer, and Juliet is not quite sure what she wants. An insightful, witty novel from the multi-award-winning author of Tirra Lirra by the River, Jessica Anderson.

‘A provocative blend of Jane Austen domesticity, Iris Murdoch androgyny and Australian sensuality.’ — Washington Post Book World

First published in 1989, Taking Shelter was shortlisted for the NBC Banjo Award for Fiction in 1990 and the Miles Franklin Literary Award the following year.

J Jessica Anderson (1916–2010) was a novelist and short story writer. Her novels include The Commandant (1975), Tirra Lirra By the River (1978) which won the Miles Franklin Literary Award in 1978, and The Impersonators (1980), which won the same award just two years later, along with the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction (1981). Her multi-award-winning collection of short stories, Stories from the Warm Zone and Sydney Stories (1987), is also part of the Untapped Collection.

The Acolyte

by Thea Astley
Ligature untapped
genre Literary Fiction

Jack Holberg is a blind musician and composer from Queensland who becomes world famous. Paul Vesper, ‘the acolyte’ of the title, tells the great man’s story—and his own—in this dark, funny portrait of an artistic genius and those who worshipped, and suffered, at his feet.

First published in 1972, The Acolyte won the Miles Franklin Literary Award that same year.

Thea Astley, AO (1925–2004) won the Miles Franklin Literary Award four times, for The Well Dressed Explorer (1962), also in the Untapped Collection, The Slow Natives (1965), The Acolyte (1972) and Drylands (1999). Other awards for her work include The Age Book of the Year, the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction and a Queensland Premier’s Literary Award. She also received multiple personal awards including, in 1989, the Patrick White Award and, in 2002, a New South Wales Premier’s Award for a lifetime’s achievement in literature.