'In 1920s Brisbane, Lizzie O’Dea wants to get away from her dad and the memories of her mum that haunt her. At the races, she meets attractive, war-scarred Joe. When he says that he wants to marry her and take her away to far-flung Townsville, Lizzie sees her chance to escape.
'But Lizzie soon falls through what she’d thought was a safety net. On the fringes of society, she discovers a new sense of independence and sexuality, love and friendship. It’s a precarious life, though. Always on the edge of collapse, eventually it spins out of control.
'Two decades later, Lizzie is sick and worn out. Lying in a Brisbane lock hospital, she thinks about Joe, who’s been lost to her for twenty years. But she’s a survivor. There’s hope yet.' (Publication summary)
'Historical fiction writers can be drawn to the true stories of women who have committed violent or criminal acts, as are readers. Margaret Atwood's Alias Grace and Hannah Kent's Burial Rites are popular, acclaimed examples of this trend. In my own creative work, Treading Air, I fictionalise the life of Lizzie O’Dea, petty thief and sex worker. The women in these stories are vulnerable subjects unable to give their consent, and the often elliptical and unreliable historical records that are the textual traces of their lives, coupled with the discomfort of the voyeuristic gaze, make representations of criminal women in historical biofiction a fraught act.' (Publication abstract)
'The jazz era of the 1920s in America was filled with exuberant music, fast cars and young men and women determined to have a good time. But at the same time in working-class Far North Queensland, life wasn’t lived at quite the same level of opulence. In a new novel, Treading Air, Queensland author Ariella Van Luyn uses fiction to investigate the life of a real young woman from Townsville named Lizzie O’Dea, who shot another woman in 1924.'
'The jazz era of the 1920s in America was filled with exuberant music, fast cars and young men and women determined to have a good time. But at the same time in working-class Far North Queensland, life wasn’t lived at quite the same level of opulence. In a new novel, Treading Air, Queensland author Ariella Van Luyn uses fiction to investigate the life of a real young woman from Townsville named Lizzie O’Dea, who shot another woman in 1924.'
'Historical fiction writers can be drawn to the true stories of women who have committed violent or criminal acts, as are readers. Margaret Atwood's Alias Grace and Hannah Kent's Burial Rites are popular, acclaimed examples of this trend. In my own creative work, Treading Air, I fictionalise the life of Lizzie O’Dea, petty thief and sex worker. The women in these stories are vulnerable subjects unable to give their consent, and the often elliptical and unreliable historical records that are the textual traces of their lives, coupled with the discomfort of the voyeuristic gaze, make representations of criminal women in historical biofiction a fraught act.' (Publication abstract)
