'From the author of the multi-award-winning bestseller Between a Wolf and a Dog, a powerful collection of previously unpublished stories.
'A sister is haunted by the consequences of a simple mistake. A daughter searches for certainty as her mother’s memory degrades. An encounter at a house party changes the course of a life.
'In We All Lived in Bondi Then, beloved Australian author Georgia Blain returns to her resonant themes of relationships and family, illness and health, love and death. Composed in Blain’s final years, these nine stories grapple with large questions on a human scale, brimming with her trademark acuity, nuance, and warmth.' (Publication summary)
'When Georgia Blain died at the age of fifty-one in 2016, the reading public was robbed of a superb prose writer in her prime. Her final and, some consider, best novel, Between a Wolf and a Dog (2016), achieved wide critical acclaim. Shortly after Blain succumbed to brain cancer, that novel went on to win or be shortlisted in a slew of national prizes.' (Introduction)
'Posthumous work has a spectral quality. It’s haunting to hear so distinctly the voice of a writer who has died, or to glimpse beyond it the work that might have been written. We All Lived in Bondi Then is a reminder of the loss Georgia Blain’s early death meant for readers, as well as those close to her. As acclaimed novelist Charlotte Wood writes in her introduction about the death of her friend, “my grief for Georgia was also about the terrible unfairness of losing her work, just when her talent was approaching its height”.' (Introduction)
'I first met Georgia Blain at The Basement. This was back in the 1990s, when the iconic underground jazz venue near Sydney’s Circular Quay still drew a vibrant, edgy crowd. We were young, in our late 20s, and had been invited to read for an event hosted by the Sydney Writers’ Festival; there to be the “bright young things”.'(Introduction)
'I first met Georgia Blain at The Basement. This was back in the 1990s, when the iconic underground jazz venue near Sydney’s Circular Quay still drew a vibrant, edgy crowd. We were young, in our late 20s, and had been invited to read for an event hosted by the Sydney Writers’ Festival; there to be the “bright young things”.'(Introduction)
'Posthumous work has a spectral quality. It’s haunting to hear so distinctly the voice of a writer who has died, or to glimpse beyond it the work that might have been written. We All Lived in Bondi Then is a reminder of the loss Georgia Blain’s early death meant for readers, as well as those close to her. As acclaimed novelist Charlotte Wood writes in her introduction about the death of her friend, “my grief for Georgia was also about the terrible unfairness of losing her work, just when her talent was approaching its height”.' (Introduction)
'When Georgia Blain died at the age of fifty-one in 2016, the reading public was robbed of a superb prose writer in her prime. Her final and, some consider, best novel, Between a Wolf and a Dog (2016), achieved wide critical acclaim. Shortly after Blain succumbed to brain cancer, that novel went on to win or be shortlisted in a slew of national prizes.' (Introduction)
