'Since childhood, Emily Clements’ sense of self had always been shaped by the opinions of others and the need to be liked.
'When a stand-off with her best friend sees nineteen-year-old Emily stranded in Vietnam, she is alone for the first time and adrift in a new environment. With seemingly nothing to lose, she makes the biggest decision of her life – to stay. But Emily's attempts to bridge a yawning loneliness spur a downward spiral of recklessness, as she hurtles from one sexual encounter to the next. It will take a truly terrifying experience for her to understand that sex is both a weapon and a wound in her battle for self-worth and empowerment.
'Delicately interweaving past and present, The Lotus Eaters is a sharply written story of self-redemption from an exciting young voice in Australian memoir that dissects the patterns of blame and shame women can form around their bodies and relationships.'
Source: Publisher's blurb.
'Melbourne-based memoirist Emily Clements delivers a complex examination of female autonomy and desire.'
'When Emily Clements finds herself alone in Vietnam after her best friend suddenly departs for Australia, she tries to make the best of her opportunity to see Southeast Asia. Only nineteen, Clements quickly picks up the language and goes out of her way to meet Hanoians. This memoir of her year in Vietnam is not, however, a typical expat book about immersing oneself into another culture. Instead, it centers on the way women are conditioned to put our feelings last.' (Introduction)
'As a young journalist, I wrote a lot about trauma. The federal Sex Discrimination Act was less than a decade old when I first joined a newsroom in the early 1990s and its passage helped broaden the public discussion of intimate crimes such as sexual assault and domestic violence, previously considered verboten in polite society.' (Introduction)
'Named for the Greek myth about a race of people who indulge in hedonism rather than dealing with the realities of life, Emily Clements’ memoir follows two time lines: the author throughout adolescence, and the author, aged 19, living in Vietnam, having just fled from her toxic best friend. The earlier memories show a girl desperate for social approval, self-conscious about body image and hungry for male attention – even when it’s interlaced with danger or disquiet. The impact of Clements’ experiences as a girl mirror her life in Vietnam where, after years of conditioning, she sees her body as a powerful tool that can easily betray her – and finds herself in a terrifying situation that is the catalyst for an empowering personal shift.' (Introduction)
'Named for the Greek myth about a race of people who indulge in hedonism rather than dealing with the realities of life, Emily Clements’ memoir follows two time lines: the author throughout adolescence, and the author, aged 19, living in Vietnam, having just fled from her toxic best friend. The earlier memories show a girl desperate for social approval, self-conscious about body image and hungry for male attention – even when it’s interlaced with danger or disquiet. The impact of Clements’ experiences as a girl mirror her life in Vietnam where, after years of conditioning, she sees her body as a powerful tool that can easily betray her – and finds herself in a terrifying situation that is the catalyst for an empowering personal shift.' (Introduction)
'As a young journalist, I wrote a lot about trauma. The federal Sex Discrimination Act was less than a decade old when I first joined a newsroom in the early 1990s and its passage helped broaden the public discussion of intimate crimes such as sexual assault and domestic violence, previously considered verboten in polite society.' (Introduction)
'When Emily Clements finds herself alone in Vietnam after her best friend suddenly departs for Australia, she tries to make the best of her opportunity to see Southeast Asia. Only nineteen, Clements quickly picks up the language and goes out of her way to meet Hanoians. This memoir of her year in Vietnam is not, however, a typical expat book about immersing oneself into another culture. Instead, it centers on the way women are conditioned to put our feelings last.' (Introduction)
'Melbourne-based memoirist Emily Clements delivers a complex examination of female autonomy and desire.'
