Cory Taylor

Cory Taylor is one of Australia’s celebrated novelists, the author of the brilliant Me and Mr Booker (winner of the Commonwealth Writers Prize, Pacific region), and My Beautiful Enemy (shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award). At the age of sixty, she is dying of melanoma-related brain cancer. Her illness is no longer treatable. As she tells us in her remarkable last book, Dying: A Memoir, she now weighs less than her neighbour’s retriever. Written in the space of a few weeks, in a tremendous creative surge, this powerful and beautifully written book is a clear-eyed account of what dying has taught Cory: she describes the tangle of her feelings, she reflects on her life, and she remembers the lives and deaths of her parents. She tells us why she would like to be able to choose the circumstances of her own death. Dying: A Memoir is a breathtaking book about vulnerability and strength, courage and humility, anger and acceptance. It is a deeply affecting meditation on dying, but it is also a funny and wise tribute to life.

A Memoir

Dying

في معنى أن نموت

Looking back, Martha could've said no when Mr Booker first tried to kiss her. That would've been the sensible thing to do. But Martha is sixteen, she lives in a small dull town - a cemetery with lights - her father is mad, her home is stifling, and she's waiting for the rest of her life to begin. Of course Martha would kiss the charming Englishman who brightened her world with style, adventure, whisky, cigarettes and sex. But Martha didn't count on the consequences. Me and Mr Booker is a story about feeling old when you're young and acting young when you're not.

Me and Mr Booker

I was blinded by his beauty. In the one or two photographs I’ve kept of him I can still see it. He stares out of them almost miserably, as if his loveliness is an affliction. Not that I saw it that way, at least not in the beginning. In the beginning I thought it was a kind of miracle. Arthur Wheeler is haunted by his infatuation with a Japanese youth he encountered in the enemy alien camp where he worked as a guard during WW2. Abandoning his wife and baby son, Arthur sets out on a doomed mission to rescue his lover from forced deportation back to Japan, a country in ruins. Thus begins the secret history of a soldier at war with his own sexuality and dangerously at odds with the racism that underpins the crumbling British Empire. Four decades later Arthur is still obsessed with the traumatic events of his youth. He proposes a last reunion with his lost lover, in the hope of laying his ghosts to rest, but this mission too seems doomed to failure. Like Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence and Snow Falling On Cedars, My Beautiful Enemy explores questions of desire and redemption against the background of a savage racial war. In this context, Arthur’s private battles against his own nature, and against the conventions of his time, can only end in heartache.

My Beautiful Enemy

Shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award, 2014. A heartbreaking story of love and loss set against the backdrop of a Japanese internment camp in Victoria during WW2. Arthur Wheeler is haunted by his infatuation with a Japanese youth he encountered in the enemy alien camp where he worked as a guard during WW2. Abandoning his wife and baby son, Arthur sets out on a doomed mission to rescue his lover from forced deportation back to Japan, a country in ruins. Thus begins the secret history of a soldier at war with his own sexuality and dangerously at odds with the racism that underpins the crumbling British Empire. Four decades later Arthur is still obsessed with the traumatic events of his youth. He proposes a last reunion with his lost lover, in the hope of laying his ghosts to rest, but this mission too seems doomed to failure. Like Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence and Snow Falling On Cedars, My Beautiful Enemy explores questions of desire and redemption against the background of a savage racial war. In this context, Arthur's private battles against his own nature, and against the conventions of his time, can only end in heartache. Cory Taylor is an award-winning screenwriter who has also published short fiction and children's books. Her first novel, Me and Mr Booker, won the Commonwealth Writers Prize (Pacific Region). She lives in Brisbane. 'Taylor has crafted her novel superbly. The pace is measured, and the restraint, particularly in the later stages of the book, lends My Beautiful Enemy its emotional punch...A moving and accomplished novel that explores fascinating untold lives from our past.' Sydney Morning Herald/Age/Canberra Times 'Black humour is cunningly tangled with moments of sheer emotional devastation; Taylor crafts sentences of such sharpness and insight that I was forced to pause at moments to bask in the prose. My Beautiful Enemy is a heartfelt and beautifully written novel about love and war for readers of exquisitely crafted literary fiction.' Australian Bookseller and Publisher 'An almost unbearably beautiful story about longing and secret lives in which grief and joy turn out to be much the same thing.' Robert Dessaix 'Longing, desire, fear, confusion and self-delusion are all expressed with finesse and subtlety in a distinctive, memorable voice and assured, elegant prose.' Caroline Baum, Booktopia 'This is a beautifully told story of love, longing and the war within.' The Hoopla ‘Reminiscent of a Kazuo Ishiguro novel...a love story that is tender and original.' Readings Monthly

Im Nachhinein konnte Martha nicht sagen, wann sie Mr. Booker das erste Mal küsste Vernünftig wäre es gewesen, den verheirateten Mann nicht zu begehren. Doch Martha ist sechzehn und lebt in einer Kleinstadt, die in ihren Augen ein Friedhof mit Beleuchtung ist. Sie wartet darauf, dass der Rest ihres Lebens endlich beginnt. Mr. Booker erhellt ihre Welt mit Stil, Abenteuer, Whiskey, Zigaretten und Sex. Die Wucht ihres Verlangens zerstört und ermächtigt sie. Nur hat Martha die Konsequenzen nicht bedacht. "Mr. Booker und ich" erzählt von dem Gefühl, erwachsen zu sein, wenn man jung ist, und sich jung zu geben, wenn man es nicht mehr ist. "Eine beinahe zärtliche Geschichte von Liebe, Sex, Macht und dem Erwachsenwerden." Australian Bookseller "Der Roman erinnert uns daran, dass Jugendliche so schnell erwachsen werden, weil sie von Erwachsenen umgeben sind, die sich wie Kinder benehmen." Sydney Morning Herald

Mr. Booker und ich

When 16-year-old Martha starts a relationship with an older man, she doesn't count on the consequences that she brings down upon herself. Original.

Me and Mr. Booker

"Bracing and beautiful . . . Every human should read it." —The New York Times A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice At the age of sixty, Cory Taylor is dying of melanoma-related brain cancer. Her illness is no longer treatable: she now weighs less than her neighbor’s retriever. As her body weakens, she describes the experience—the vulnerability and strength, the courage and humility, the anger and acceptance—of knowing she will soon die. Written in the space of a few weeks, in a tremendous creative surge, this powerful and beautiful memoir is a clear-eyed account of what dying teaches: Taylor describes the tangle of her feelings, remembers the lives and deaths of her parents, and examines why she would like to be able to choose the circumstances of her death. Taylor’s last words offer a vocabulary for readers to speak about the most difficult thing any of us will face. And while Dying: A Memoir is a deeply affecting meditation on death, it is also a funny and wise tribute to life.

Dying: A Memoir

Focusing on German society immediately following the First World War, this vivid historical narrative explains how fake news and political uproar influenced Hitler and put him on the path toward dictatorial power. How did an obscure agitator on the political fringes of early-20th-century Germany rise to become the supreme leader of the "Third Reich"? Unlike many other books that track Adolf Hitler's career after 1933, this book focuses on his formative period--immediately following World War I (1918-1924). The author, a veteran producer of historical documentaries, brings to life this era of political unrest and violent conflict, when forces on both the left and right were engaged in a desperate power struggle. Among the competing groups was a highly sophisticated network of ethnic chauvinists that discovered Hitler and groomed him into the leader he became. The book also underscores the importance of a post-war socialist revolution in Bavaria, led by earnest reformers, some of whom were Jewish. Right wing extremists skewed this brief experiment in democracy followed by Soviet-style communism as evidence of a Jewish-Bolshevik plot. Along with the pernicious "stab-in-the-back" myth, which misdirected blame for Germany's defeat onto civilian politicians, public opinion was primed for Hitler to use his political cunning and oratorical powers to effectively blame Jews and Communists for all of Germany's problems. Based on archival research in Germany, England, and the US, this striking narrative reveals how the manipulation of facts and the use of propaganda helped an obscure, embittered malcontent to gain political legitimacy, which led to dictatorial power over a nation.

Cory Taylor

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