'On her first day of school, Lily Struthers meets Eva, one of the daughters of the infamous avant-garde artist Evan Trentham. He and his wife are attempting to escape the stifling conservatism of 1930s Australia by inviting other like-minded artists to live and work with them at their family home. As Lily’s friendship with Eva grows, she becomes infatuated with this artist colony, longing to truly belong to this makeshift family.
'Looking back on those years later in life, Lily realises that this utopian circle involved the same themes as Evan Trentham’s art: Faustian bargains and terrible recompense; spectacular fortunes and falls from grace. Yet it was not Evan, nor the other artists he gathered around him, but his own daughters, who paid the debt that was owing.
'The Strays is an engrossing story of ambition, sacrifice and compromised loyalties from an exciting new talent.'
Source: Publisher's blurb. (Sighted: 30/1/2014)
Epigraph:
'To burn always with this hard, gem-like flame,
to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life'
– Walter Pater
At Home with Emily Bitto
Astrid Edwards
(interviewer),
2021
23443379
2021
single work
podcast
interview
'Emily Bitto is a Melbourne-based writer of fiction, poetry and non-fiction. Her debut novel, The Strays, was the winner of the 2015 Stella Prize, and in 2021 she released her second novel, Wild Abandon.
'Her fiction, poetry and non-fiction has appeared in various publications, including Meanjin, The Age, the Monthly, the Saturday Paper, The Big Issue, and The Sydney Morning Herald. She is also the co-owner of Carlton wine bar Heartattack and Vine.' (Production summary)
The Strays by Emily Bitto
Melbourne
:
CAE Book Group
,
2015
9463832
2015
single work
criticism
