AustLit

'“They said: ‘Keep that boy at arm’s length’. But whose arm? The arm of an orangutan, a giant squid, a Tyrannosaurus rex?” These lines from Chloe Wilson’s short story collection Hold Your Fire could be a response to the standard advice given to girls on how to ward off unwanted sexual advances. It’s the kind of advice that puts the onus on victims, so that the body they’re trying to protect – their own – somehow, monstrously, becomes both predator and prey, a hostile, turbulent force that they must spend their entire lives keeping under tight control.' (Introduction)