Cirrus@Austlit

'Four generations of women, four ideas about how to live… and dance!

''It's 1982. The Knighton women, all living under one roof are about to be struck with dance marathon fever...

''Greaty, 75, matriarch of the Knighton family. Turning down marriage proposals since 1927, backbone of her Clare Valley community. Favourite dance: The Foxtrot.

'Gran, 55, on the frontline of the women’s movement with her best friend, Wilma. Never saw a picket line she didn’t like. Favourite dance: The Twist.

''Lucy, 32, single mother, romantic, looking to find a man and get married – finally. Favourite dance: The Hustle.

'Holly, 12, obsessed with Australia's favourite star, best friends with Barry Jones and determined to win Adelaide’s illustrious dance marathon. Favourite dance: Tap!

'Greaty, fierce and fearless is creating her legacy, re-writing the rules of The Women’s Annual, a tome her own mother gifted to her as a young woman. In it, she weighs up time-honoured traditions of housekeeping, and reflects on what makes a woman’s life her own, rather than at the beck and call of society’s rules – and men.

'Meanwhile, Holly, on verge of teenhood, is finding her own feet, banking on becoming a famous dancer, until Gran and Wilma decide the marathon is the latest focus of their activism, bringing feminist values to Adelaide’s premier social event of the year…

'Bring on the generational conflict that'll leave sequins on the dancefloor. 

'A story about family, the changing lives of women in the 20th century, and the joy of fulfilling one's purpose and dreams, The Knighton Women's Compendium is the heartwarming read of this summer.' (Publication summary)

'Meet Dorcas, a spirited 12-year-old struggling to contain her irrepressible humour and naughty streak in a family of Christadelphians in 1960s Adelaide. She is her mother’s least favourite child and always at the bottom of the order on the family’s string of beads that she and her younger siblings Ruthy and Caleb reorder according to their mother’s ever-changing moods. 

'Dorcas, an aspiring vet, dreams of having a dog, or failing that, a guinea pig named Thruppence. Ruthy wants to attend writing school, and Caleb wants to play footy with the local team. But Christadelphians aren’t allowed to be ‘of the world’ and when their older brother Daniel is exiled to door knock and spread the good word in New South Wales after being caught making out with Esther Dawlish at youth camp, each try their hardest to suppress their dreams for a bigger life. But for a girl like Dorcas, dreams have a habit of surfacing at the most inopportune moments, and as she strives to be the daughter her mother desires, a chain of mishaps lead to a tragedy no one could have foreseen.

'This is a superb coming of age story that explores a fraught mother-daughter dynamic, and the secrets adults keep from their children. It is about resilience, and the loves that sustain us when our most essential bonds are tested, and how to find the way back through hope and forgiveness.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.