Fiction
Melting Moments
by Anna Goldsworthy
Description
Sometimes events occur as one might wish but sometimes they do not.
So says the ever-practical Ruby, always striving for what is right and proper, from the time we meet her as a striking soldier’s fiancée through to the rather less steady years of her old age. With an eyebrow pencil in one hand and gardening shears in the other, Ruby navigates the intervening years doing her duty as a woman, allowing marriage and motherhood to fill her with purpose and pleasure – and only occasionally wondering, Is this all there is?
In her moving, captivating fiction debut, award-winning author Anna Goldsworthy recreates Adelaide and Melbourne of half a century ago, bringing a family to life as they move through the decades, challenging and caring for and loving one another, often in surprising ways. Charming and sharply observed, Melting Moments is, like Ruby herself, a gentle powerhouse.
More Information
Rights Information
Rights available: World English-language
Reviews
"An example of the way in which a work of fiction, which is by its definition made up, can sometimes be nonetheless exquisitely true." —Louise Swinn, The Saturday Paper
"A skilful blend of wit and pathos … There is much to enjoy in this accomplished novel: resonant moments of tenderness or acerbic observations; the contradictions and complexities of character; and a stylistic poise that makes the writing feel uniformly, deceptively effortless." —Australian Book Review
"Goldsworthy is a superb writer and an exceptional observer of human nature … Even as she beautifully renders, with restraint and insight, Ruby’s specific story and era, there is a timelessness to this novel and its concern with women’s lives and desires." —Readings
"[A] charming novel … a sensitive and insightful account of a middle-class woman living in the suburbia of her time." —ArtsHub
"A generous and vivid picture of the microscopic details of so many women’s lives … a feminist document of a particularly penetrating kind." —Carmel Bird, The Australian
"A charming, highly engaging story ... Goldsworthy writes beautifully and has created a memorable character in Ruby. A joy to read." —The Sydney Morning Herald
Author Biography
ANNA GOLDSWORTHY is the author of Piano Lessons, Welcome to Your New Life and the Quarterly Essay Unfinished Business: Sex, Freedom and Misogyny. Her writing has appeared in the Monthly, the Age, the Australian, the Adelaide Review and The Best Australian Essays. She is also a concert pianist, with several recordings to her name.
Black Inc.
An imprint of Schwartz Books, Black Inc. is a leading independent Australian book publisher of fiction, non-fiction and poetry. We are passionate about diversity, inclusivity, social justice, new ideas and writing which informs, entertains and inspires. We are fiercely independent, but also strongly commercial. We publish local and international commercial mass-market titles under our Nero imprint, and children’s books under Piccolo Nero. Our La Trobe University Press imprint brings leading scholars and exports to deliver books of high intellectual quality, substance and originality. Schwartz Books also publishes the issue-defining journals Quarterly Essay and Australian Foreign Affairs.
View all titlesBibliographic Information
- Publisher Black Inc.
- Publication Date March 2020
- Orginal LanguageEnglish
- ISBN/Identifier 9781863959988
- Publication Country or regionAustralia
- FormatPaperback
- Primary Price 29.99 AUD
- Pages240
- ReadershipGeneral
- Publish StatusPublished
- Dimensions234 x 153 mm
