Literary Elixirs - Angela Savage
Joining me for this episode’s online chat is award-winning Melbourne writer, Angela Savage!
Angela always wanted to be a writer, but figured she needed to live an interesting life first in order to have something worth writing about. She spent most of the 1990s living and working on HIV projects in Southeast Asia, before returning to Australia, where she alternated between writing fiction and working in the community sector. Her debut novel, 'Behind the Night Bazaar', won the 2004 Victorian Premier's Award for an Unpublished Manuscript, and she won the 2011 Scarlet Stiletto Award for short fiction. Angela holds a PhD in Creative Writing, giving her the Bond villain-like title of Doctor Savage. Her new novel 'Mother of Pearl' was published in 2019 and she is currently the Director of Writers Victoria.
Stone Sky Gold Mountain by Mirandi Riwoe
Family circumstances force siblings Ying and Lai Yue to flee their home in China to seek their fortunes in Australia. Life on the gold fields is hard, and they soon abandon the diggings and head to nearby Maytown. Once there, Lai Yue finds a job as a carrier on an overland expedition, while Ying finds work in a local store and strikes up a friendship with Meriem, a young white woman with her own troubled past. When a serious crime is committed, suspicion falls on all those who are considered outsiders.
Evoking the rich, unfolding tapestry of Australian life in the late nineteenth century, Stone Sky Gold Mountain is a heartbreaking and universal story about the exiled and displaced, about those who encounter discrimination yet yearn for acceptance.
Angela loved the description in the book of a dried plum - sometimes called a dried prune - and thought that nothing would pair better with this book than this particular bittersweet delicacy.
Swallow the Air by Tara June Winch
In 2006, Tara June Winch’s startling debut Swallow the Air was published to acclaim. Its poetic yet visceral style announced the arrival afresh and exciting new talent. This 10th anniversary edition celebrates its important contribution to Australian literature.
When May's mother dies suddenly, she and her brother Billy are taken in by Aunty. However, their loss leaves them both searching for their place in a world that doesn't seem to want them. While Billy takes his own destructive path, May sets off to find her father and her Aboriginal identity.
Her journey leads her from the Australian east coast to the far north, but it is the people she meets, not the destinations, that teach her what it is to belong.
Angela loves road trips and suggested that the best pairing for this story is your favourite road trip food, her pick was pies and boy does she know her pie shops!
Grief is the Thing with Feathers by Max Porter
In a London flat, two young boys face the unbearable sadness of their mother's sudden death. Their father, a Ted Hughes scholar and scruffy romantic, imagines a future of well-meaning visitors and emptiness.
In this moment of despair they are visited by Crow - antagonist, trickster, healer, babysitter. This self-described sentimental bird is attracted to the grieving family and threatens to stay until they no longer need him. As weeks turn to months and physical pain of loss gives way to memories, this little unit of three begin to heal.
Justine loved this haunting, heartbreaking evocation of grief and of healing. She suggested a chocolate martini as the perfect soothing, creamy pairing needed to help you through it.