The Quiet and the Loud

Informationen zum Autor Helena Fox lives by the ocean on Dharawal Country in Wollongong, Australia. She mentors young writers and runs writing workshops to support mental health. Helena's debut novel, How It Feels to Float , won the Prime Minister's Literary Award and Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Writing for Young Adults in Australia, and was a Kirkus Best Book of the Year and Chicago Public Library Best Book of the Year in the U.S. Helena received her MFA in Creative Writing from Warren Wilson College. She can be found mostly on Instagram at @helenafoxoz, posting pictures of the sea and talking about kindness. Klappentext Seventeen-year-old George usually finds solace on the water, but when her estranged father returns, her best friend becomes pregnant, and wildfires tear through Australia she seeks refuge in a new relationship. Leseprobe summer, nine When I was small, almost ten years old, I rowed out with my father to the middle of a lake. It was after midnightowls prowled, lizards hid, and Mum lay sleeping in the tent beside the water. We'd arrived at the lake in late afternoon, unpacked the car, and set up campa big tent for Mum and Dad, a small one of my very own, for me. Mum banged in pegs with a hammer. Dad fluffed around with the fly and guy ropes, swearing. The lake lap-lapped . I clambered over the shoreline, found flat rocks, and skipped them. At dusk, we three stood at the water's edge. I held Mum's hand and we looked out at the lake, the mist, the quiet, fading light. Birds squabbled and settled. The dark dropped in. Then Mum cooked sausages on the fire while Dad blew up our inflatable dinghy with a foot pump. After dinner, we turned marshmallows on our sticks, watching the skin bubble and blacken. The flames crackled and licked. I crawled into them, listening for stories. Mum drank her tea. Dad pulled out a beer, hissed the can open. Took a long draw. Mum touched my leg, stirring me. Time for bed, she said. I brushed my teeth with bottled water and spat paste onto the dirt. I kissed Mum and Dad good night, crept into my tent, snugged into my sleeping bag, and went to sleep. Dad woke me with a shake. Georgia! he whispered. Let's go have an adventure! I could see his glassy eyes, his toothy grin in the dark. I stared at him, confused. I'd been dreaming of apples, of underwater trees? I glanced left, at the canvas walljust a few steps away was Mum. Don't wake her, Dad said. Come on! There was something in his voice, something sparking. Say yes, the spark said. Dad's eyes glittered. I sat up, shivered out of my bag, and scooted out of the tent. Dad handed me a jacket. We tiptoed like burglars over to where the boat waited. We lifted the dinghy, laid it onto the water, and clambered in. Then Dad pushed us out into the nothing. The lake was inky. Gum trees ghosted the shore. The moon ticked across the sky, and the stars blazed. I looked up. I felt wrapped in it, inside the immensity, the space and silence all around. But I didn't have the word for that then immensity so I said, It's really pretty. Dad beamed. Isn't it just? he said. He rowed us until we were nowhere and everywhere. I dipped my hand into the water, scooped and trickled moonlit drops through my fingers. Dad did too. He rested the oars, leaned over the dinghy side, and looked into the lake. He looked into it so long, maybe the sky fell into the lake and the lake fell into the sky, because then Dad looked like he wanted the lake to eat him up. He said, Hey, buddy, you can row back, can't you? Just head for those trees. And with a plop and a splash, he hopped into the water and swam away. Oh . Dad hadn't surprised me like this in a while. It had been months of a sort-of calm, a sort-of easy, a sort-of happy. I'd seen Mum kissing Dad in the kitchen and smiling into his eyes, and it had bee...

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Helena Fox

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“A writer to be reckoned with.” —Kathleen Glasgow, author of Girl in Pieces and You’d Be Home Now

A heartbreaking, hopeful, and timely novel about facing family secrets, healing from trauma, and falling in love, from the award-winning author of How It Feels to Float

George’s life is loud. On the water, though, with everything hushed above and below, she is steady, silent. Then her estranged dad says he needs to talk, and George’s past begins to wake up, looping around her ankles, trying to drag her under.

But there’s no time to sink. George’s best friend, Tess, is about to become, officially, a teen mom, her friend Laz is in despair about the climate crisis, her gramps would literally misplace his teeth if not for her, and her moms fill the house with fuss and chatter. Before long, heat and smoke join the noise as dis­tant wildfires begin to burn.

George tries to stay steady. When her father tells her his news and the painful memo­ries roar back to life, George turns to Calliope, the girl who has just cartwheeled into her world and shot it through with colors. And it’s here George would stay—quiet and safe—if she could. But then Tess has her baby, and the earth burns hotter, and the past just will not stay put.

A novel about the contours of friendship, family, forgiveness, trauma, and love, and about our hopeless, hopeful world, Helena Fox’s gorgeous follow-up to How It Feels to Float explores the stories we suppress and the stories we speak—and the healing that comes when we voice the things we’ve kept quiet for so long.

"Compelling and arresting" —Shelf Awareness (starred review)
"Powerful, heart-tugging" —Books+Publishing
"As deeply enjoyable as it is reflective . . . sweet and yet emotionally mature" —BCCB
"Brilliant" —Utopia State of Mind
"A sensitive portrayal of complex PTSD" —Booklist
"Lyrical and evocative . . . Vivid" —Kirkus
"Heartbreaking yet uplifting and hopeful . . . Highly recommend[ed] —EveryQueer.com

Résumé
A heartbreaking, hopeful, and timely novel about holding too tight to family secrets, healing from trauma, and falling in love, from the award-winning author of How It Feels to Float.