Cover illustration by Deb Snibson ©
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should be directed to Spinifex Press
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All That False Instruction
Kerryn Higgs
FICTION
Winner of the Angus and Robertson manuscript prize
- Growing up in a rural working-class home, Maureen Craig rebels against her angry mother, the privileges of her favoured brother, and the relentless conformity of 1950s Australia. University promises a new world both terrifying and exhilarating in its challenges. She explores her sexuality and sets out to make a place for herself in the world.
Passionate, funny and heartbreaking, this remarkable novel traces a young woman’s turbulent coming of age. Originally published under the pseudonym Elizabeth Riley. This edition includes an Introduction by Harriet Malinowitz and an Afterword by the author.
‘An explosive mix of raw sanity and wicked humour – a bombshell of a book.’ —Robert Dessaix
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A powerful examination of self and sexuality … a tone reminiscent of Miles Franklin’s Sybylla: self-conscious, dripping with irony, splendidly audacious … surely now a feminist classic.’
—Debra Adelaide, Sydney Morning Herald
"A powerful first novel, psychologically persuasive … exceptionally well-written" – Mary Lord, Australian Book Review
"A unique voice – candid, bracingly intelligent, alive to the world" – Helen Garner
‘an important text for a range of fields … realises brilliantly the social conditions that gave rise to the 1970s feminist consciousness and politics that in turn enabled the women’s writing of the 1980s’ - Delys Bird, Australian Book Review
‘an honest and very Australian story of a love that dared speak its name’ - Fiona Capp, The Age
‘In a nutshell … one of the best Australian novels I have ever read’ - Lucy Sussex, Overland
‘my all-time favourite lesbian novel’ – Rebecca Kagan, Lesbians On The Loose
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