The highly praised debut from Tasmanian author Robbie Arnott, now in a beautiful B-format edition. Released ahead of Arnott's second novel, coming mid-2020.
Robbie Arnott was a 2019 Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Novelist and won the Margaret Scott Prize in the 2019 Tasmanian Premier's Literary Prizes. His widely acclaimed debut, Flames (2018), was shortlisted for a Victorian Premier's Literary Award, a New South Wales Premier's Literary Award, a Queensland Literary Award, the Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction and Not the Booker Prize. He lives in Hobart.
'A strange and joyous marvel.' -- Richard Flanagan
'Ambitious storytelling from a stunning new Australian voice.
Flames is constantly surprising-I never knew where the story
would take me next. This book has a lovely sense of wonder for the
world. It's brimming with heart and compassion.' -- Rohan
Wilson
'Robbie Arnott is a vivid and bold new voice in Australian
fiction.' -- Danielle Wood
'Visionary, vivid, full of audacious transformations: there's a
marvellous energy to this writing that returns the world to us
aflame. A brilliant and wholly original debut.' -- Gail Jones
'Arnott skilfully switches between different voices and genres in a
trick reminiscent of David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas. The range
he displays is impressive, swinging from fable to gothic horror to
hardboiled detective story.' * Books+Publishing *
'Flames is an exuberantly creative and confident debut. This
is a story that sparks with invention...Invigorating, strange and
occasionally brutal.' * Australian Book Review *
'This is the kind of book that you'll be able to read a second,
third, even fourth time, and it will still never reveal all its
secrets. Composed with meticulous attention to detail, and a
mastery of form rarely found in a debut novel, Flames will
keep you stewing long after you've finished reading it.' * Readings
*
'A surprising story with a definite feminist edge...the novel's
playfulness and poetry make for a fresh and entertaining read.' *
Saturday Paper *
'Arnott confidently borrows from the genres of crime fiction,
thriller, romance, comedy, eco-literature, and magical realism,
throws them in the air, and lets the pieces land to form a flaming
new world.' * Sydney Morning Herald *
'This is a startlingly good first novel, stylistically adventurous,
gorgeous in its descriptions and with a compelling narrative that
should find a wide readership.' * Australian *
'A gloriously audacious book. It runs astonishing risks and takes
on the biggest emotions...It bowled me sideways.' * New Zealand
Herald *
'Unique and memorable...Extraordinary energy...A rich and memorable
picture with prose of an exceptionally high quality. You won't read
another Australian literary novel like this anytime soon.' * Kill
Your Darlings *
'[A] novel you will want to read more than once, not so much to
plumb its depths as to savour its wild variety of styles and
voices, to revel in its breathtaking descriptions of Tasmanian
wilderness and to grasp its intricate structure...There is no doubt
that a poetically wild and wicked imagination is at work here. More
please!' * SA Weekend *
'It's not hard to see where the hype came from. This is an assured,
funny and highly imaginative work. Flames is strange from
the first, arresting sentence.' * Stuff NZ *
'Highly innovative...[A] finely built and realised first novel.' *
Otago Daily Times *
'Flames is brilliant...Enjoy it for its prose poetry, its
vivid imagery, its brilliant turns of phrase on nearly every page.'
* NZ Listener *
'Delightful. He jumps playfully between different writing styles in
every chapter...[An] enchanting story that also captures something
very real about Tasmanian life.' * Guardian *
'An engrossing narrative of mystery and escape that treats the
reader to bravura runs of writing, especially around the elements
of water and fire...You never quite know which direction the story
will take off in as it creates a new kind of fairytale for our
fire-prone landscape.' -- Judges' report * Sydney Morning Herald
Best Young Australian Novelist 2019 *
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