AustLit

'In 2005, Emma Marie Jones lost her beloved younger sister in a heartbreaking accident. Something to Be Tiptoed Around is an experimental memoir, in which Emma explores the nature of grief, loss, memory and femininity. Drawing on elements of Greek mythology and literary theory, Something to Be Tiptoed Around is a multilayered exploration of the fate of human love after death.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'My mother once told me - before my sister died or after? I can't remember - that she believed in ghosts. She believed in ghosts, she said, because when a person dies the energy that animated their body has to go somewhere, and it can't disperse like the ashes do when you throw them to the wind, it can't break up and redistribute itself among the blades of grass, the yellow flecks of acacia wattle sneaking hayfever into eyes and noses, no: it goes bigger, it goes into the earth, the rocks, the rivers.' (Publication abstract)