T

Shortlisted for the TAG Hungerford Manuscript Award 2018

Shortlisted for the International Chaffinch Press Manuscript Award (Ireland)

Chilling to read, cut with powerful energy and strong feeling.

T, or Timothy, lives on the economic margins, both using and selling methamphetamine in Mandurah. When a friend, Gulp, tragically dies and T grows close to Lori-Bird, his life promises to become more centred. But he moves between loving and leaving her.

This is a lyrical and arresting portrait of characters who crave love but struggle with addiction and the tenuous yet intimate community connections it gives them. The spirit of the Peel landscape informs both T's identity and the lives of the people he encounters and offers a way out.

Intimate with suffering and beauty, T is also at times transcendent. A contemporary novel with the urgency of what Davies' Candy, Kerouac's On the Road, and Garner's Monkey Grip were to their own times.

'Confronting and discomfiting, with small moments of redemption T is very much a story for our times.' – Kate Noske and Richard Rossiter (Hungerford Award Judges).

'There is nothing else currently being written that is quite as exciting. Its blend of realism, grittiness, pared-back lyricism, and magical realism is unique and hasn't been seen since the work of a powerful novelist of regional life like Tom Flood. T works the margins, both in terms of place and subject of the culture around meth use, in utterly compelling ways. This story needs to be told.' – Lucy Dougan, Premier's Award winner and Westerly editor.