Dustjacket synopsis:
"Elizabeth Jolley's compelling and inventive new novel is set in a Summer School, amid an isolated and surreal landscape where nothing is quite as it appears. Miss Alma Porch, writer and tutor, travels to the School to present the outline of her unwritten novel, "Foxybaby" to the Creative Drama students. In the process, real and invented worlds collide.

"Jolley presents for her readers the wider drama of human experience, posing matters of life, death and loneliness in a narrative laced with irony, compassion and dark humour."

First Paragraph:

There is only road going east from the township of Cheathem West and this road after approximately two hours of sedate driving (one hour for the reckless) becomes the main high street of Cheathem East.

There are scarcely any houses in Cheathem East as very few people live there. There is no hotel and no shop.

Scattered between the two Cheathems are a few lonely farms tucked and folded as if sewn neatly into the landscape for many years. In places, where the road rises, the dark seams of these farms can be seen in the distance. It is as if they are embroidered with rich green wool or silk on a golden background. In the design of the embriodery are a few trees and some silent houses and sheds. Narrow places, fenced off and watered sparingly, produce a little more of the dark-green effect in the picture.

From the UQP hardback edition, 1985.

This page and its contents are copyright © 1997-2001 by Perry Middlemiss, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.

Last modified: March 25, 2001.