THE FISHCASTLE
Elizabeth Stead
£6.99
'A book to savour'
Sunday Telegraph
On Proudie Bay, an Australian seaside village, sits the Fishcastle, home to the Hardwicks. A 'man house' it is dominated by Marlin Hardwick, promiscuous and patriarchal, who has driven his wife to an early death, transformed his daughter Jennifer into a drudge and his son into a drunkard.
But life begins to change at the Fishcastle with the slow infiltration of various women: Jennifer's new hippie friend Miriam and her daughter Beccy: Marlin's sister Hester, now homeless after a storm; and Hester's new acquaintance Lucrezia, an Amazon in modern guise. As the balance of the sexes shifts, so drama and tragedy ensue and the character of one dysfunctional family is changed forever.
Elizabeth Stead
was born in Sydney, Australia in 1932 and is the niece of writer Christina Stead. She was inspired greatly by her grandfather, David George Stead, naturalist and conservationist and father of Christina. She has acted, modelled, written plays, danced, travelled and painted, and is interested in anything that moves and most things that don't. She has published numerous short stories. The Fishcastle is her first novel.