AustLit

'I sat on the bed, staring at the phone like it had fangs about to dig into my skin. My cousin’s name was lit up like a flag. Dread pulsed in my chest. Here came the conversation I’d been avoiding for more than a decade. He now knew I liked sucking dick. I flicked my thumb over his name, tender as a blade, and watched it slide open.'(Introduction)

'When my daughter was two-and-a-half, I took her to her first movie. She was princess-obsessed at the time and I had bought tickets to The Little Mermaid. I knew this was ambitious—toddlers are not known for their capacity to sit still for 90 minutes. I had anticipated a short period of awe, quickly superseded by an ants-in-the-pants restlessness. What I had not expected was to hear her wailing by the end of the first song. But a few minutes after Ariel began lamenting her life beneath the sea, my daughter was crying in sympathy for the would-be princess’s plight. That such a young child could feel empathy under these conditions was a revelation. It made me wonder about the physiology of empathy. At what age does empathy develop? What parts of the brain are responsible for it? Why are some people more empathetic than others?' (Introduction)

'This book will change your life is a phrase to make the eyes roll, especially if you’re a book publisher. It is conceivable that a book’s wisdom and insight might make you fitter or smarter, a better lover, cook or parent. It might make you more empathetic and spiritual, calmer and neater to boot. It might transform your social interactions as your friends start twitching as you drone on about a book’s revelations. Residents of the Land of Literature will argue that the pleasure of serious reading—a noble end in itself—is life-changing enough.'(Introduction)

'‘Regrets I’ve had a few / But then again too few to mention’, the famous song declares. It is enduringly popular: the singer did it his way. This hymn to individualism I heard broadcast the other day to us shoppers, one familiar song following another, in a place of conformity and predictability, a large supermarket, where occasionally a distracted customer, oblivious to others, will sing along or hum. I didn’t—I’m reasonably sure—in that somnambulistic state generated by supermarkets, as shoppers drift down one aisle after another, sing snatches of ‘My Way’ but I did, masked no doubt by an expressionless face, wonder about regret.'(Introduction)

'I’ve been thinking about Beverley Farmer’s beautiful, aching book The Seal Woman again recently because I spent some time last year on the surf coast of Victoria, alone in a house on a hill above a beach, red-rocked and windy and wild—the same kind of landscape that Dagmar, the book’s protagonist, inhabits. Dagmar is Danish, but has returned to Australia, to the coastal town where she spent her honeymoon 20 years ago, to mourn her husband, who was killed recently in a shipping accident in the North Sea. Dagmar is housesitting for the friends they both met there, staying in the house alone, adjusting to life alone, walking on the beach and cooking simple meals and reading, and grieving, all the time grieving.' (Introduction)

'For those who’ve come across the seas…

'It doesn’t take long to break a man. You can do it in a second, in one punch, one judgment handed down, one small gesture. I’ve seen it happen: a sudden crumpling of the features, a devastating blow. I’ve remembered those occasions, viewed them as significant; to watch someone once full of life die, to be replaced by a shattered husk, is humbling.

'To watch someone break over a period of months was a different thing altogether. To see eyes go from shining to dull, to watch shoulders slowly droop and hang, as if the arms themselves were too heavy. To hear the tone of bored resignation slowly take over a voice, dulling it until only a monosyllabic version of the previous incantation remained; for a man to become a hopeless case, no longer even angry enough to fight against the injustice of it all, was something I’d never seen. That’s what I saw as a doctor on Nauru working for International Health and Medical Services (IHMS).' (Introduction)

'When I left home, at age 15, I had nowhere to stay, so a school friend’s mother offered to let me live with her and her children for a while. At first I slept on the floor in my friend’s room; later I was given a small foldout foam sofa and a space in the living room. I did my best to keep out of the house when I wasn’t at school or work, but I knew that my presence was inconvenient.' (Introduction)

'On the smallest finger joint of my right hand there is a scar, a tiny, fleshy thing shaped like a heart. I was five, perhaps six. Mum and I were laughing, wrestling, and the sapphire on her engagement ring cut me. The scar it left is something that makes me think of home. It reminds me of the house in which I was born; bottlebrush fence out the front, pea-green roof, black and white cat. My father covered the shed in the garden with white paint, and then we painted a mural on the wall. My grandmother was horrified, but she didn’t know the magic that lies in marking your own home.'(Introduction)

'Mark Twain once declared that the sole function of a writer is to tell the truth. And yet many of the world’s noblest storytellers—the consciences of our nations—have sadly gone unrecognised in their own lifetimes. With this in mind, we have gathered here today to announce the winner of the inaugural Paradox Prize—an award recognising the best unrecognised book of the previous year. It is a pleasure to be here at the State Library of New South Wales on this fine December evening. Many thanks to Meanjin, which has generously sponsored this ceremony.' (Introduction)