A stunning, thought-provoking novel about facing up to your family and your future

Joey is young, indifferent. He’s drifting around Western Sydney unaware that his passivity is leading him astray. And then one day he is involved in a violent crime, one that threatens to upend his life entirely.

Elaine, his grandmother, is a proud Lebanese woman with problems of her own. When Joey is arrested, she is desperate to save face and hold herself together. In her family, history repeats itself, vices come and go, and uncovering long-buried secrets isn’t always cathartic.

This gripping and hard-hitting novel reveals the richness and complexity of contemporary Australian life and tests the idea that facing consequences will make us better people.

George Haddad is an award-winning writer and artist practising on Gadigal land whose work explores masculinities and the limitations of language in communicating truths. His novella, Populate and Perish, was the winner of the 2016 Viva La Novella competition and his short story Katharsis was awarded the 2018 Neilma Sidney Prize. Haddad is currently a doctoral candidate and sessional tutor at the Writing and Society Research Centre, Western Sydney University.