Emily Maguire

When beautiful 25-year-old Bella Michaels is brutally murdered in the small New South Wales town of Strathdee, the community is stunned and a full investigation gets underway as a media storm descends. Unwillingly thrust into the eye of that storm is Bella's beloved older sister, Chris, a barmaid at the local pub and occasional sex worker, and a woman whose apparent easygoing nature conceals hard-won wisdom and the kind of street-smart only experience can bring. As Chris is plunged into despair and searches for answers, reasons, explanations - anything - that could make even the smallest sense of Bella's death, her ex-husband, friends and neighbours do their best to support her. But as the days tick by with no arrest, Chris's suspicion of those around her grows. Also interested in Chris is May Norman, a young, self-absorbed city journalist, who is determined that Bella's murder will be the story to launch her career. But the longer May spends in Strathdee, the more she feels unable to do the job she was sent to do, yet unwilling to leave until she knows how the story ends. An Isolated Incident is a psychological thriller about everyday violence, the media's obsession with pretty dead girls, the grip of grief and the myth of closure, and the difficulties of knowing the difference between a ghost and a memory, between a monster and a man.

An Isolated Incident

A stunning, simply told story of great compassion and insight, from the author of the Stella Prize-shortlisted An Isolated Incident.

Love Objects

Taming the beast

A whole new feminism? What's it like being a young woman today? Feminists won the equal rights war back in the 70s, and young women today have it so much easier than their mothers, right? Wrong, argues Emily Maguire. Society today is most comfortable to categorise women as Princesses (in need of protection) or Pornstars (peoples whose major duty is to be attractive and turn on men). This sharp, funny and insightful book reveals how the treatment of young women as fragile or in need of male assistance can be as objectifying and damaging to women as pornography and raunchy culture. Maguire wants us to see men and women for their character first, rather than their sex and gender attributes. If they wash dishes, have children or wear make-up it should be because they want to not because society expects them to. Equally they should not be judged if they choose to engage in casual sex, pursue a fulfilling career or decide not to have children. A mix of personal story, reportage, analysis and polemic, written in a bold, intimate style, containing interviews with porn aficionados, young brides and 'homemakers' Princesses and Pornstars is a gripping and essential snapshot of where female sexuality is today.

Sex, Power, Identity

Princesses and Pornstars

Gospel According to Luke

A history of Australian feminism from the 1890s to the present day, examining the rise of feminism in the domains of work, home, body and public space. The book highlights and discusses the contributions of a number of important Australian feminists over this period, including migrant and Indigenous women and women with a disability. Women profiled include Catherine Helen Spence, Faith Bandler, Jessie Street, Zelda D'Aprano, Edith Cowan, Miles Franklin, Vida Goldstein, Pat O'Shane, Stella Young and others.

The Rise and Rise of Australian Feminism

This Is What a Feminist Looks Like

After many waves of feminism, where are we? Are young women really either massive sluts or helpless dolls? And anyway, what's the definition of a slut? Young women have a lot of questions. In Your Skirt's Too Short: Sex, Power, Choice a revised young adult edition of her book Princesses and Pornstars, Emily Maguire ignites discussion on issues relevant to teenagers. Drawing on her adolescence and the experiences faced by teens today, Maguire looks for answers and a way forward. This personal and illuminating book is a bridge to enable young women and men to understand the issues behind them and those ahead of them. Guided by the wisdom born of experiences, both good and bad, Maguire offers advice without lecturing in this engaging and frank book that will inform and equip readers of all ages.

Sex, Power, Choice

Your Skirt's Too Short

A stunning novel of great compassion and insight, from the author of the Stella Prize-shortlisted An Isolated Incident. Shortlisted for the 2022 ABIA Literary Fiction Book of the Year.

A dazzling debut from one of Australia's most gifted young writers "Maguire keeps the prose crackling and the dialogue lively ... from the first page to the last." Publishers Weekly Sarah Clark's life is irrevocably changed at the age of 14 when her English teacher, Mr Carr, seduces her after class. Their affair is illegal, erotic, passionate and dangerous - a vicious meeting of minds and bodies. But when Mr Carr's wife discovers the affair, he has to choose between them and moves to another city with his family. Sarah is devastated and from that day on her life is defined by a series of meaningless, self-abasing sexual encounters, hoping with each man that she will experience the same delicious feelings she had with Mr Carr. Seven years later Daniel Carr walks back into Sarah's life and she is drawn once again into the destructive relationship. Is Sarah strong enough to "tame the beast"? PRAISE FOR EMILY MAGUIRE "At the heart of ... Emily Maguire's work lies an urgent need to pull away at the interconnecting threads of morality, society and human relationships." Sydney Morning Herald "what you get, along with a sharp mind and a keenness to investigate cultural confusions, is an engaging ability to put the vitality of the story first." Weekend Australian

Taming the Beast

Isolated Incident

Singling out the work of Lydia Cabrera as emblematic of the experimentation with genre that characterized the age, Maguire constructs a series of counterpoints that place Cabrera's work in dialogue with that of her Cuban contemporaries.

Racial Experiments in Cuban Literature and Ethnography

'The understatement of its writing and its tenderness and unsentimentally give Smoke in the Room a compelling and convincing energy that holds the reader absorbed, then gently lets her go.' AUSTRALIAN BOOK REVIEW Summer, Sydney, and holed up in a tiny flat off Broadway are idealistic American Adam, weary activist Graeme, and wild, misunderstood Katie. Each is searching for answers to life’s biggest questions – why are we here? what is love? what constitutes betrayal? – and thrust together, over an intense two-week period, they begin to form answers. In doing so, they must first confront their darkest demons, both within and without... Provocative, honest, brimming with sexual tension and crackling with intelligence, Emily Maguire’s sensational novel cements her place as one of Australia’s hottest talents. 'At the heart of ... Emily Maguire's work lies an urgent need to pull away at the interconnecting threads of morality, society and human relationships.' SYDNEY MORNING HERALD

Smoke in the Room

'An emotionally gripping and page-turning read' SYDNEY MORNING HERALD Six years ago, Mischa Reese left her abusive husband and suffocating life in California and reinvented herself in steamy, chaotic Hanoi. In Vietnam, she finds satisfying work and enjoys a life of relative luxury and personal freedom. Thirty-five and single, Mischa believes that romance and passion are for teenagers; a view with which her cynical, promiscuous expat friends agree. But then a friend introduces Mischa to his visiting eighteen-year-old son. Cal is a strikingly attractive Vietnamese-Australian boy, but he’s resentful of his father, and of the nation which has stolen him away. His beauty and righteous idealism awaken something in Mischa and the two launch into an affair that threatens Mischa’s friendships and reputation and challenges her sense of herself as unselfish and good. Set among the louche world of Hanoi’s expatriate community, Fishing for Tigers is about a woman struggling with the morality of finding peace in a war-haunted city, personal fulfilment in the midst of poverty and sexual joy with a vulnerable youth. 'Fishing for Tigers is a sharply observed novel, both page-turning and thought-provoking. It vividly evokes the particular beauty of Hanoi, the intoxication of being a stranger, and the danger of desire.' NEWTOWN REVIEW OF BOOKS

Fishing for Tigers

From the internationally-acclaimed author of Taming the Beast, The Gospel According to Luke and Fishing for Tigers. Summer, Sydney, and holed up in a tiny flat off Broadway are idealistic American Adam, weary activist Graeme, and wild, misunderstood Katie. Each is searching for answers to life's biggest questions - why are we here; what is love; what constitutes betrayal - and thrust together, over an intense two-week period, they begin to form answers. In doing so, they must first confront their darkest demons, both within and without... Provocative, honest, brimming with sexual tension and crackling with intelligence, this sensational novel cements Maguire's place as one of Australia's best young writers. PRAISE FOR EMILY MAGUIRE "At the heart of ... Emily Maguire's work lies an urgent need to pull away at the interconnecting threads of morality, society and human relationships." Sydney Morning Herald "what you get, along with a sharp mind and a keenness to investigate cultural confusions, is an engaging ability to put the vitality of the story first." Weekend Australian

Emily Maguire

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