Fifteen years to the day since I first held my real-life baby, I held, for the first time, my brand new baby. Yes: the advance copy of my debut novel, posted last Friday from my publisher in Australia, arrived in today’s mail. Lena has landed in New Zealand. I’m feeling a lot less exhausted today … Read more…
About Tracy Farr
Books+Publishing Reviews features The Life and Loves of Lena Gaunt
The Life and Loves of Lena Gaunt was reviewed in Books+Publishing Reviews (feature review, 30 May 2013 newsletter). Grateful thanks to Books+Publishing for permission to quote the full text of this subscriber-only review here. The Life and Loves of Lena Gaunt (Tracy Farr, Fremantle Press, September), 4 stars, reviewed by Katie Haydon, Books+Publishing Reviews, 30 May 2013. To encompass a person’s whole life in … Read more…
The old woman and the sea
The first review of my novel was published last week (in Books+Publishing Reviews, 30 May 2013, reproduced here with permission), and reviewer Katie Haydon (who gave it four stars) said it would be appreciated particularly by, among others, “lovers of the sea”. I’m pleased she mentioned that. Water flows through the novel; it’s almost a character in it. It’s … Read more…
It’s instrumental
In my novel, The Life and Loves of Lena Gaunt, the eponymous Lena Gaunt – musician, octogenarian, junkie – is Music’s Most Modern Musician; theremin player of legend. So, I’ve been thinking a lot about theremins for the last few years, while I’ve been writing the novel. I may even have become a little obsessed with them … Read more…
Yargnits
They walk on the crunch of gravel and shells. There are voices from the marae, kids and grownups all outside and inside and the noise of them carrying on the still-warm night air. To the left of them is the sea, flat, like a lying down window. Dark like a window at bedtime, with only … Read more…