It’s glorious, the water in the morning, when it’s calm like this, when you can just bob on the surface, like a seal, watching. How well it makes me feel, how calm; how light and how heavy at the same time: like heroin – a little bit like heroin.
Octogenarian musician Lena Gaunt lives quietly in the Perth suburbs. An early embracer of electronic music – Music’s Most Modern Musician – she found fame in Jazz-age Sydney as a virtuoso of the theremin and travelled the world before settling down to a life of daily swims…and a decades-old heroin habit.
Now, for the first time in 20 years, she’s performing at a festival again. In the audience is documentary filmmaker Mo Patterson. Lena’s extraordinary past makes her an intriguing film subject: but is she prepared to reveal the secrets she has guarded for so long?
Why would I want to tell my story now? Why open up my quiet life by the sea to scrutiny, to piss-takers and filmmakers?
Spanning continents and much of the twentieth century, from colonial Malacca to post-war Europe, The Life and Loves of Lena Gaunt is a story of talent, modernity and belonging, of a life shaped by the ebb and flow of love and loss, and the constant pull of the sea.
- Longlisted for the Miles Franklin Award 2014
- Shortlisted for the Barbara Jefferis Award 2014
- Shortlisted for the Western Australian Premier’s Book Award 2014
- Adapted for radio by RNZ
- Published internationally
Reviews
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Interviews
Audio – Life, love and the theremin
Tracy talks to RNZ’s Lynn Freeman about The Life and Loves of Lena Gaunt, and her own love affair with the theremin.
Audio – Tracy Farr’s The Life and Loves of Lena Gaunt
Tracy talks to ABC Radio National’s Miyuki Jokiranta for Books & Arts. Listen at ABC RN …