{"title":"Michael Fitzgerald","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMichael Fitzgerald\u003c\/strong\u003e crafts stories that weave richly imagined worlds with compelling characters, blending the intrigue of historical settings with the depth of general fiction. His novels invite readers into immersive narratives where past and present collide, revealing human resilience and unexpected connections.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eFrom intimate portraits to sweeping tales, Fitzgerald’s work explores the complexities of identity, memory, and belonging. Whether set against vivid historical backdrops or within thoughtfully constructed contemporary landscapes, his storytelling captivates with emotional nuance and elegant prose.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"late-by-michael-fitzgerald-9781923023024","title":"Late","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003e'So, was it hard to pretend I was \"dead\"? Well, my motivation was abundant; it was splendiferous, endless, you might say.'\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAn American actress, renowned for being late, is living with her two cats in a modernist clifftop apartment in Sydney in the late 1980s.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe recounting of her story is prompted by the arrival of an old typewriter and a book addressed to Zelda Zonk, and by the arrival of a young man called Daniel, who is locked out while house-sitting her neighbour's apartment.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eTogether, Zelda and Daniel form an unlikely but close bond as they go walking, prepare dinner for Shabbat, traverse Sydney Harbour on a ferry, and talk about their lives. Part of their bond is the discovery that they are both orphans. Daniel is also a habitué of the nearby sandstone cliffs where men have mysteriously gone missing.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eLate\u003c\/i\u003e, Michael Fitzgerald superbly captures the literary spirit and sensibility of an ageing woman and icon who has escaped celebrity. It is a haunting and lyrical novel about art, friendship, and confronting our fears.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e'A big swing that works beautifully. Fitzgerald's affection and respect for his subject, whom we all know and don't know at all, results in a voice that rings true: warm, tender, passionate, smart, self-aware and very, very witty.' - C. J. Johnson, President of the Film Critics Circle of Australia\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e'Deeply referential, dramatic and allusive, \u003ci\u003eLate\u003c\/i\u003e balances on a tightrope between present and past lives, public and private roles. A riveting mystery unfolds. In the process, the author delivers a meditation on celebrity and a love song to Sydney.' - Catherine Phil MacCarthy, author of \u003ci\u003eDaughters of the House\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eOne Room an Everywhere\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Hachette Aotearoa New Zealand","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46712147378412,"sku":"9781923023024","price":37.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/18641363482872.jpg?v=1754279432"},{"product_id":"piet-by-michael-fitzgerald-9781925760743","title":"Piet","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThese are the last days of 1999. At St Peter's Basilica in Rome, as the world waits for the new millennium, Lucy, a young Australian woman, looks up at Michelangelo's \u003ci\u003ePiet\u003c\/i\u003e behind its pane of bullet-proof glass; a red kabbalah string circles her wrist. She has come with the mysterious parcel her recently deceased mother asked her to bring to the box marked POSTE VATICANE.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eBut before Rome, there is Saint-Cloud. Here, on the outskirts of Paris, Lucy works as an au pair for Jean-Claude and his wife Mathilde. When Mathilde leaves for Central Australia to research the Aboriginal artist Kumanjayi, Lucy's circle of contacts becomes smaller and strangely intimate: Jean-Claude, the baby Felix for whom she cares, and the couple's charismatic friend Sebastien, a marble restorer. Yet Lucy's homesickness for Australia and its vastness haunts her world, surfacing in the memories of her mother, the Australian garden at Empress Josephine's Malmaison, and Mathilde's letters from Alice Springs.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eLucy's mother, Jude, who was a nun in the 1970s, once warned her daughter 'to be careful what she wished for'. It is a caution that marks but rarely alters the choices these characters make. With lushness and tenderness, and revelation, Fitzgerald's unforgettable novel \u003ci\u003ePiet\u003c\/i\u003e exquisitely captures the glorious and imperfect relationships between parents and children, between art and life.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eVivid, clever and moving:\u003c\/b\u003e \u003ci\u003ePiet\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cb\u003eis a timely meditation on art icons, iconoclasm and the mysteries of love and time.\u003c\/b\u003e - Gail Jones, award-winning author of \u003ci\u003eOur Shadows\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Hachette Aotearoa New Zealand","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46714065322220,"sku":"9781925760743","price":34.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/17932763482873.jpg?v=1754342931"},{"product_id":"the-pacific-room-by-michael-fitzgerald-9780995359550","title":"The Pacific Room","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e'Do I look strange?' These were his last recorded words. That night Sosimo kissed his hands and laid them across his breast, knitting his fingers together like flowers. The next morning the household watched his coffin, held aloft by a dozen brown hands, disappear into an ocean of leaves. Every now and then, at a turn of the mountain, it would emerge from the trees, bobbing higher and higher, floating free.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThis remarkable debut novel tells of the last days of Tusitala, 'the teller of tales', as Robert Louis Stevenson became known in Samoa where he chose to die. In 1892, Girolamo Nerli travels from Sydney by steamer to Apia, with the intention of capturing something of \u003cem\u003eJekyll and Hyde\u003c\/em\u003e in his portrait of the famous author. Nerli's presence sets in train a disturbing sequence of events.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eMore than a century later, art historian Lewis Wakefield comes to Samoa to research the painting of Tusitala's portrait by the long-forgotten Italian artist. On hiatus from his bipolar medication, Lewis is freed to confront the powerful reality of all the desires and demons that R. L. Stevenson couldn't control. Lewis's personal journey is shadowed by the story of the lovable Teuila, a so-called fa'afafine ('in the manner of a woman'), and the spirit of Stevenson's servant boy, Sosimo.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eSet in an evocative tropical landscape haunted by the lives and spirits which drift across it, \u003cem\u003eThe Pacific Room\u003c\/em\u003e is both a love letter to Samoa and a lush and tender exploration of artistic creation, of secret passions and merging dualities. 'A wonderfully stylistic novel, dream-like and mesmeric. It moves with ekphrastic cadences, from painting to writing and back again, between the present and the past, both muted and full of nuance, like a water-colour of archived time. Fitzgerald skilfully employs a controlled language of concealment and careful observation through which character is translated. All the while, there are subliminal disturbances below, indicating fatal and fateful meetings between culture and history.' - Brian Castro, Winner of the Patrick White Award for Literature\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Hachette Aotearoa New Zealand","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47384046534892,"sku":"9780995359550","price":34.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/10317323482542.jpg?v=1773399211"}],"url":"https:\/\/bookhero.pro\/collections\/michael-fitzgerald.oembed","provider":"Book Hero","version":"1.0","type":"link"}