Small Joys of Real Life by Allee Richards

‘a painful, beautiful novel that is a welcome addition to Australia’s growing crop of women-centred millennial fiction’ Books + Publishing

The night Eva shared a smile with Pat, something started. Two weeks later, lying together in her bed, Pat said, ‘You can’t live your life saying you’ll get around to doing something you know will make you happy. You just have to do it.’

Eva didn’t know how devastating those words would turn out to be. Pat dies and the aftershock leaves Eva on unsteady ground. She is pregnant. And she has to make a choice.

Suddenly, the world that she at times already questioned, her career, her roommates and friends, and life in the inner-city are all even harder to navigate. Her best friends, Sarah and Annie, are also dealing with the shifts and changes of their late twenties, and each of them will at times let the others down.

Small Joys of Real Life is a poignant and unpredictable novel from an exciting new literary talent about how the life you have can change in an instant. It’s about friendship, desire, loss and growing up to accept that all you can do is be in the moment and look to find the joys in between.

‘It’s the little bursts of good in what could be described as a modern-millennial tragedy that makes Allee Richards’ debut novel the poignant work that it is’ The Guardian

‘an exploration and, in many ways, celebration of the untidy years of young adult lives, and all the tragic and surprising loss, love and wonder that entails’ The Age

‘Richards brilliantly navigates the trials and tribulations of your late twenties’ ArtsHub

A poignant and unpredictable debut from an exciting new literary talent. Shortlisted for both The Richell Prize for Emerging Writers and the Victorian Premier’s Award for an Unpublished Manuscript, Small Joys of Real Life is Sally Rooney meets Helen Garner.

About the Author: Allee Richards’ short fiction has been published widely in Australian literary magazines and anthologies, including Kill Your Darlings, The Best Australian Stories, New Australian Fiction, Best Summer Stories, The Lifted Brow, Voiceworks and Australian Book Review. Her debut novel, Small Joys of Real Life, was shortlisted for the 2019 Richell Prize for Emerging Writers and the 2020 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for an Unpublished Manuscript. A Light in the Dark is her second novel. Allee lives in Melbourne and works as a theatre lighting technician.

28 Jul 2021
 

Small Joys of Real Life by Allee Richards ISBN 9780733645471