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A new edition of Beverley Farmer’s classic 1980 debut, out of print for many years. Alone captures the emergence of one of Australia’s most powerful and distinctive writers.
Set in Melbourne in the late 1950s, and taking place over the course of two days and nights, Alone chronicles a young woman’s hopelessness and obsession provoked by the ending of a passionate relationship. A fledgling writer, estranged from her family and a dropout from university, she recalls her desire for her female lover, and contemplates ending her life. As she travels through a city fallen into cultural and economic malaise, shadowed by the constant threat of sexual violence, she reflects on the days and months that have brought her to despair.
Beverley Farmer’s debut novel, based partly on her own experiences, captures the romantic intensity and ironic reversals of youthful longing. Alone displays Farmer’s remarkable capacity for bringing different forms of writing together, prose and poetry, dialogue and dramatic monologue, and shows the formation of an unmistakable, lyrical literary voice.
As she explores the frailty of emotional experience, Farmer places her characters in a luminous domain of elemental sensual experience.
Cassandra Pybus
Beverley Farmer’s expansive curiosity and regard for microcosmic significance sharpen a reader’s attention to all things lived, dreamed, and observed.
Josephine Rowe