Cirrus@Austlit

'Buried Not Dead is a collection of writings on art, literature and performance, sexuality, activism and the life of the city. In these essays, written over twenty-five years, Fiona McGregor documents performance artists, writers, dancers, tattooists and DJs, some of them famous, like Marina Abramović and Mike Parr, while others, like Latai Taumoepeau, Lanny K and Kathleen Mary Fallon, are less well known. In capturing these figures and the scenes they inhabit, McGregor offers an expansive archive of art and life of a kind rarely recorded in our histories.

'Fiona McGregor’s immersion in her subject matter comes from a deep and enduring involvement in the worlds she represents. She came of age as an artist during an outpouring of performative queer culture, in a community that celebrated subversion, dissent and uninhibited partygoing, and in her writing she observes the shift from that moment towards new forms of cultural repressiveness. McGregor is a participant in her essays as well as a witness – she sees through an artist’s eyes and records what she perceives with a novelist’s insight. In excavating the lives of others, she reveals her own, and shows the possibilities that rest beneath the surface of our culture.' (Publication summary)

'Marie King is a 59-year-old divorcée from Sydney's affluent north shore. Having devoted her rather conventional life to looking after her husband and three children - who have now all departed the family home - she is experiencing something of an identity crisis, especially as she must now sell the family home and thus lose her beloved garden. On a folly she gets a tattoo.

'Marie forges a friendship with her tattoo artist, Rhys, who introduces her to an alternative side of Sydney. Through their burgeoning connection, Marie's two worlds collide causing great friction within Marie's family and with her circle of rich friends.' (From the publisher's website.)