Pegasus in the Suburbs Jennifer Kremmer 1999

Dustjacket synopsis:

"Maree lives in a sprawl of brick veneer, splintery fences, hot summers and vacant lots. Father sticks to the adage 'waste-not, want-not' and thinks parenting is a matter of keeping the family in sight and under check. Her mother flits from room to room with a Mortein can on a campaign to eradicate.

"This is the 'burbs, where boys are tough, older sisters spend a lot of time in the bathroom, and parents jam 50s expectations into a 70s nuclear now. Life is never precisely as it was meant. But then again, who meant it?

"Maree fervently wishes to be an orphan adopted by her teacher. When this fails, she wants instead to be a horse. Part tableau, ruthlessly deadpan, and only in small measure a story of a teenager and her horse, Pegasus in the Suburbs tells what happens when a girl gets - almost - what she wants."

About the Author:
Jennifer Kremmer grew up in south-western Sydney and studied at Newcastle and UTS. She currently lives in Campbelltown and is planning a novel about presentation aesthetics, body image and waste. Pegasus in the Suburbs is her first novel.

First Paragraph:

Maree became a girl before she could be anything else.

As a girl, she thought the only thing worse than being born a girl was to be born unlucky. Later she knew that there is no such thing as luck.

Being born is just being born.

Being a girl is being taught to be a girl.

Her mother bought her a trainer bra. The trainer bra sat on the bed because Maree refused to try it on. The trainer bra was pink.

Every day, Maree's mother said, 'Have you tried on that bra I bought you?'

Every day, Maree said, 'What, that stupid old thing, it can rot on my bed for all I care. I don't need one. If I ever get boobs, I'll have them cut off. I'll never have a baby anyway.' And she would turn back to the drawing she was doing on the kitchen table, among cereal packs and jam jars and her mother's bits of unfinished or forgotten sewing, packs of press-studs and cotton reels, discarded broken needles and half-moons of fabric from the offcuts of sleeves.

From the Allen and Unwin paperback edition, 1999.

Notes:
This novel was the winner of the Australian/Vogel Award in 1998.

This page and its contents are copyright © 2001 by Perry Middlemiss, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.

Last modified: May 18, 2001.