Showing results by narrator "Gemma Carfi" in All Categories

The Magpie Wing is set on football fields, in sharehouses, at punk gigs and in dilapidated and gentrifying pubs. Max Easton’s debut novel moves from the nineties to the present, and between the suburbs and the inner city, exploring how communities that appear worlds apart—underground music scenes, rugby league clubs, communist splinter groups—often share unexpected roots.

Rosie Royce is trying to live her best life. Really, she is. But it seems like life hasn't gotten the memo. It's been six years since childhood sweetheart Wes Preston jumped on a plane and never looked back, and Rosie spends most nights spooning her laptop. If she has to swipe on one more bloke posing with a sedated tiger, she'll scream. An impulse move to the idyllic country town of Mudgee is the fresh start Rosie needs, as she trades in her high-pressure marketing career for a laidback gig in local radio. Hell, she may even meet one of those dreamy farmers she's seen on TV.

It’s 2022 and Helen is starting again. Newly single, dogged by grief, adrift in a hostile rental market, she finds a four-bedroom house flanked by apartment blocks that stare into the yard. Despite the lack of privacy, she fills its rooms with an unlikely group of residents looking for communal belonging: zine maker, activist, disaffected artist, part-time rugby league player – each looking to build a future, each haunted by their recent past. But if a rented house in Sydney could ever promise salvation, it would come with a coating of black mould.