Published in 2018
244 pages
Jamie Marina Lau is a twenty-three-year-old multidisciplinary writer and artist. Her debut novel Pink Mountain on Locust Island won the 2018 Melbourne Prize Readings Residency Award; was shortlisted for the 2019 Stella Prize, the 2019 New South Wales Premier’s Literary Awards, the 2018 Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction, and the Australia Literature Society Gold Medal. Her writing can also be found in various publications. She is currently in the process of writing her second novel, Gunk Baby, working on various projects, and producing music.
What is this book about?
Shortlisted for the 2019 Stella Prize
Shortlisted for the 2019 New South Wales Premier’s Literary Awards
Shortlisted for the 2018 Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction
Shortlisted for the Australia Literature Society Gold Medal
Fifteen-year-old Monk lives in Chinatown with her ‘grumpy brown couch’ dad. When Santa Coy – possible boyfriend, potential accomplice – enters their lives, an intoxicating hunger consumes their home. With her dodgy dad obsessed with Santa Coy’s art, so begins a heady descent into art, casino resorts, drugs, vacant swimming pools, religion, pixelated tutorial videos, and senseless violence.
In bursts of fizzing, staccato and claustrophobic prose, this modern Australian take on the classic hard-boiled noir novel bounces you between pulverised English, elastic Cantonese and the new dialect of a digitised world.
Jamie Marina Lau’s award-winning debut novel is a brilliant and compelling tale of crime and misunderstanding that explores a multifaceted world of angst and violence. Lau is an electrifying talent.
