Published: 2007
No of Pages: 309
RRP: 26.95
ISBN Print: 1 876040 83 1
Feather Man
From parochial Brisbane of the 1950s, Sookie tries to escape her eccentric childhood where sinister sexuality is on the loose, and paint her way to better chances in the swinging London of the 1970s. Vastly intelligent, this dark comedy of the fictions of the heart is an edgy and dangerous work of portraiture.
“Brilliant, a fantastic achievement, full of the most terrific portraits… one of those books we will always remember… she joins a small group of writers who have created characters who are not necessarily sympathetic but we are totally on their side… a book of lasting power and beauty… and funny – I laughed out loud.” – Rodney Hall
“Highly original… extraordinarily well-written… told within a brilliant and exact mise-en-scene… wrapped in finely ironic and analytically acute prose… the way it is organized is very much what the Balzacs and Updikes of this world use to make their own structures… [she] shares with them a control of intention as [she] does also with Donna Tartt… I truly admire it.” – Peter Porter
2008 Winner of the Barbara Jefferis Award
2008 Winner of NSW UTS Award
2008 Shortlisted for the Australian Gold Medal for Literature
2007 Shortlisted for the Victorian Premier’s Award for Fiction
Rights: World; UK and North American rights sold to Marion Boyars Publishers, Mainland China rights sold to Anhui Literature and Art Publishing House
About the Author
Rhyll McMaster’s poetry was published in The Bulletin while she was still a schoolgirl. Of her six poetry books, The Brineshrimp won the Harri Jones Memorial Award. Washing the Money won the Victorian Premier’s Award and the Grace Leven Prize. Flying the Coop was also awarded the Grace Leven Prize. On My Empty Feet was adapted as a radio play for the ABC. Her poems have been broadcast on national radio and television.
Feather Man, McMaster’s first novel, won the inaugural Barbara Jefferis Award and the UTS Glenda Adams Prize in the NSW Premier’s Awards. Feather Man was also shortlisted for the Victorian Premier’s Award and the Australian Literature Society’s Gold Medal. World English rights were sold to Marion Boyars and it has been published in the UK, USA and Canada. It was longlisted for the World Book Day (UK) Spread-the-Word: Books to Talk About 2009 Prize.
Feather Man is being considered for film options from both Australia and Canada.It is currently stocked in English-language bookshops, including the Shakespeare & Company Bookshop, Paris. Feather Man was favourably reviewed in The New Statesman and was recommended as Pick of the Week in The Boston Globe; it was chosen for special promotion through independent bookshops by the American Booksellers’ Association, both as a Choice of the Month and for their Highlights list, and was chosen for promotion in the US by the Literary Ventures Fund.
Rhyll was interviewed on PRI’s The World radio program which is hosted by Lisa Mullins and broadcast across America. Rhyll has been a guest of the major Australian literary festivals; the Southwold Literature Festival, UK, 2008; and has conducted seminars on her novel at Sydney University. She will be featured in an ABC TV segment, The Writer’s Room.
Feather Man is in its second Australian edition and is published as an Audio book. Feather Man was listed as a ‘Favourite Australian Novel’ in a reader poll, ABR Magazine, 2010, along with Tim Winton, Patrick White and David Malouf. It is to be published in translation, in Mandarin, by the Anhui Literature and Art Publishing House, China, in 2011.
Rhyll was awarded a two-year Fellowship by the Australia Council in 2009 to write her next novel, Oceania.
Read More