Blemish News - August 2011

FALL ON ME LAUNCH

August 9, 2011

On Thursday 15th September Ms Robyn Archer AO, Centenary of Canberra Creative Director, will launch Fall On Me - Blemish Books' first novella release by Nigel Featherstone.

Nigel Featherstone is the author of over 40 published short stories with work appearing in 17 Australian literary journals, including Meanjin, Island and Overland. Since 2007, he has been a monthly cultural-comment writer for Panorama, the arts magazine of the Canberra Times. He has had two collections of short fiction published – Homelife (1999) and Joy (2000).  His novel, Remnants, appeared in 2005 and was a critical success.

Miles Franklin Award winner and author of When Colts Ran, Roger McDonald, describes Fall On Me:

‘Fall On Me is a finely written, warm and tense unfolding of a close family drama, where the family in question – father, teenage son, and possible third person – create their closeness, indeed the very idea of the family itself, out of the elements that threaten to destroy them.’ 

Set in Launceston, much of Fall On Me was written in 2010 when Featherstone took part in the Artist in Residence Program at the historic Kings Bridge Cottage at Launceston's Cataract Gorge Reserve. “Though I found my month in the caretaker’s cottage at the Gorge challenging, I now realise it was a very important time in my writing life,” he says.

Fall on Me tells the story of Lou Bard, a single father and Launceston café owner whose world is turned upside down when his intelligent and provocative teenage son, Luke, decides to exhibit his body in an art installation. Suddenly Lou is forced to revisit the dark secrets of his past, question what it means to be a good father, and discover that there’s more love in his life than he could ever have imagined.

Fall On Me will be launched at Electric Shadows Bookshop (Shop 2, 40 Mort Street, Braddon ACT 2612) at 5:30pm on 15 September 2011.   

Copies of the book will retail for $24.95 and will be available through the Blemish Books website and leading independent bookstores.

Enquiries can be directed to info[at]blemishbooks[dot]com[dot]au.