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'A masterful collection of horizons and departures, heartbreak and seduction, from an internationally acclaimed Australian author.
'These superbly crafted stories follow the fates of characters who, by choice or by force, are travelling beyond the boundaries of their known worlds. We meet them negotiating reluctant partings, navigating uncertain returns or biding the disquieting calm that often precedes decisive action.
'An agoraphobic French émigré watches disturbing terrorist footage as she minds a dog named Chavez. A young couple weather the interiority of a Montreal winter, more attuned to the illicit goings-on of their neighbours than to their own hazy, unfolding futures. A Melbourne writer of real-estate listings reflects on the stifling power of shared history as she wonders what life might be like over the fence. Other stories play out in places just beyond the brink of familiarity: flooded townships and distant lakes, sunlit woodlands or paths bright with ice, places of unpredictable access and spaces scrubbed from maps.
'From the Catskill Mountains to Snowy Mountains, the abandoned island outports of Newfoundland to the sprawl of an Australian metropolis, this scintillating collection from one of Australia’s most gifted writers shows us how the places we inhabit shape us in ways both remote and intimate.'
Source: Publisher's blurb.
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
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Stella Prize 2020 : A Readers’ Guide to the Contenders
2020
single work
— Appears in: The Conversation , 27 March 2020;'Words can help us imagine the world more deeply. Even as we retreat into our homes in this time of crisis, words can help us reach out to each other and pile up strength.' (Publication summary)
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Heartaches of Sweet Little Fish
2019
single work
review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 26 October 2019; (p. 20)
— Review of Here Until August : Stories 2019 selected work short story ; Night Fishing 2019 single work autobiography -
An Eerie Sort of Magic : Here Until August by Josephine Rowe
2019
single work
review
— Appears in: Sydney Review of Books , October 2019;
— Review of Here Until August : Stories 2019 selected work short story'Josephine Rowe’s stories are about time. Time as it is lived and as it is recounted; the way it doesn’t just progress, but speeds and slows, persists and lingers. Her characters are sometimes aware of time passing, almost as if they stand outside it, sometimes aware that the moment they are in is one that they will return to, again and again, across their later lives. Or else they are narrating from a position that is simultaneously in the present and in the future, looking back: ‘I will never see anything like it again,’ narrates a boy, suddenly a man, describing wading out to an island through a sea full of bioluminescent phytoplankton in ‘Glisk’; the story ‘What Passes for Fun’ begins with the phrase ‘somewhere close to the end of things,’ an opening that’s also a foreshadowing of an ending, although of what and of which nature the reader is never privy. Memory, in Rowe’s stories, works in anterograde, as well as in reverse.'(Introduction)
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Here Until August Josephine Rowe Black Inc.
2019
single work
review
— Appears in: The Monthly , September no. 159 2019; (p. 64)
— Review of Here Until August : Stories 2019 selected work short story 'A common tenet of the short story form is that it has no time to spare, and for this reason a story often commences as far into the action as possible, pushing up close to a single moment of reckoning. For Anton Chekhov this meant throwing away the first half of the story. For Kurt Vonnegut it resulted in a command that one begin as close to the end as possible. Josephine Rowe, in her second collection, Here Until August, tests this rule to marked effect. Instead of commencing near the end of an event, the 10 stories in this collection come as close as they can to a moment of life’s re-beginning, taking the reader up to the precipice of change rather than its culmination.' (Introduction) -
Nomads and Timid Souls : Two New Short-story Collections
2019
single work
essay
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , September no. 414 2019; (p. 26-27)
— Review of Here Until August : Stories 2019 selected work short story ; This Taste for Silence : Stories 2019 selected work short story'The inciting incident in Josephine Rowe’s short story ‘Glisk’ (winner of the 2016 Jolley Prize) unpacks in an instant. A dog emerges from the scrub and a ute veers into oncoming traffic. A sedan carrying a mother and two kids swerves into the safety barrier, corroded by the salt air, and disappears over a sandstone bluff. Three-quarters of a family are erased. And it all happens ‘in a glisk’, Fynn, the driver of the ute, will say years later.' (Introduction)
-
Nomads and Timid Souls : Two New Short-story Collections
2019
single work
essay
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , September no. 414 2019; (p. 26-27)
— Review of Here Until August : Stories 2019 selected work short story ; This Taste for Silence : Stories 2019 selected work short story'The inciting incident in Josephine Rowe’s short story ‘Glisk’ (winner of the 2016 Jolley Prize) unpacks in an instant. A dog emerges from the scrub and a ute veers into oncoming traffic. A sedan carrying a mother and two kids swerves into the safety barrier, corroded by the salt air, and disappears over a sandstone bluff. Three-quarters of a family are erased. And it all happens ‘in a glisk’, Fynn, the driver of the ute, will say years later.' (Introduction)
-
Here Until August Josephine Rowe Black Inc.
2019
single work
review
— Appears in: The Monthly , September no. 159 2019; (p. 64)
— Review of Here Until August : Stories 2019 selected work short story 'A common tenet of the short story form is that it has no time to spare, and for this reason a story often commences as far into the action as possible, pushing up close to a single moment of reckoning. For Anton Chekhov this meant throwing away the first half of the story. For Kurt Vonnegut it resulted in a command that one begin as close to the end as possible. Josephine Rowe, in her second collection, Here Until August, tests this rule to marked effect. Instead of commencing near the end of an event, the 10 stories in this collection come as close as they can to a moment of life’s re-beginning, taking the reader up to the precipice of change rather than its culmination.' (Introduction) -
An Eerie Sort of Magic : Here Until August by Josephine Rowe
2019
single work
review
— Appears in: Sydney Review of Books , October 2019;
— Review of Here Until August : Stories 2019 selected work short story'Josephine Rowe’s stories are about time. Time as it is lived and as it is recounted; the way it doesn’t just progress, but speeds and slows, persists and lingers. Her characters are sometimes aware of time passing, almost as if they stand outside it, sometimes aware that the moment they are in is one that they will return to, again and again, across their later lives. Or else they are narrating from a position that is simultaneously in the present and in the future, looking back: ‘I will never see anything like it again,’ narrates a boy, suddenly a man, describing wading out to an island through a sea full of bioluminescent phytoplankton in ‘Glisk’; the story ‘What Passes for Fun’ begins with the phrase ‘somewhere close to the end of things,’ an opening that’s also a foreshadowing of an ending, although of what and of which nature the reader is never privy. Memory, in Rowe’s stories, works in anterograde, as well as in reverse.'(Introduction)
-
Heartaches of Sweet Little Fish
2019
single work
review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 26 October 2019; (p. 20)
— Review of Here Until August : Stories 2019 selected work short story ; Night Fishing 2019 single work autobiography -
Stella Prize 2020 : A Readers’ Guide to the Contenders
2020
single work
— Appears in: The Conversation , 27 March 2020;'Words can help us imagine the world more deeply. Even as we retreat into our homes in this time of crisis, words can help us reach out to each other and pile up strength.' (Publication summary)
Awards
- 2020 shortlisted Queensland Literary Awards — Australian Short Story Collection - Steele Rudd Award
- 2020 winner The Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Novelist of the Year
- 2020 shortlisted The Stella Prize