Published in 2016 (first published 2014)
290 pages
Emily Bitto is the author of Stella Prize winning novel The Strays. She has a Masters in literary studies and a PhD in creative writing from the University of Melbourne. Her writing has appeared in various publications, including The Sydney Morning Herald, Meanjin, Heat, the Australian Literary Review and The Big Issue Fiction Edition. The Strays was shortlisted for the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for an Unpublished Manuscript, the Indie Prize and the Dobbie Award, and won the 2015 Stella Prize. Emily Bitto lives in Melbourne where she co-owns the Carlton winebar, Heartattack & Vine.
What is this book about?
On her first day at a new school, Lily meets Eva, one of the daughters of the infamous avant-garde painter Evan Trentham. He and his wife are attempting to escape the stifling conservatism of 1930s Australia by inviting other like-minded artists to live and work with them at their family home. As Lily’s friendship with Eva grows, she becomes infatuated with this makeshift family and longs to truly be a part of it.
Looking back on those years later in life, Lily realises that this utopian circle involved the same themes as Evan Trentham’s art: Faustian bargains and terrible recompense; spectacular fortunes and falls from grace. Yet it was not Evan, nor the other artists he gathered around him, but his own daughters, who paid the debt that was owing.
The Strays is an engrossing story of ambition, sacrifice and compromised loyalties from an exciting new talent.
