A Real Piece of Work
By Erin Riley
Harry Hartog's review
An emotive, thoughtful, and necessary gem of a book! Local author, Riley, profoundly writes with compassion and care of the intricacies of human nature and of their own lived experience. This collection is not only about endurance but also elation. Reading this has inspired me to write. A Real Piece of Work is an introspective look into themes including societal structures, queerness, and disorders, I encourage anyone to read this to feel seen or to gain a deeper understanding. - Bowen [they/them], Harry Hartog Bondi
Description
An exhilarating, thought-provoking and joyful debut that asks how we create our identities and how we can transcend them.
'Language gave to me the body I knew was mine and brought into existence so many possibilities for what my gender can be.'
Across these twenty fresh and boldly intimate stories, Erin Riley writes about the things that matter most- family, heartbreak, humanity, justice and swimming, and the messy, hard graft of becoming one's authentic self.
In weaving together their everyday while questioning society and its structures, Erin gifts us stories that double as a manifesto on how to disrupt and reinvent narrative, identity, love and community.
Life is complicated, messy and - when small risks are taken - even exhilarating. In Erin's hands we fall in love, get curious and become exasperated with (and sometimes charmed by) the people in their life, emerging with new perspectives on how to be in the world.
Social worker and counsellor Erin Riley is a recipient of Penguin Random House Australia's 2021 Write It fellowship program, which aspires to find, nurture and develop unpublished writers across all genres, with a focus on underrepresented sections of our community.
- ISBN:
- 9781761340154
- Format:
- Paperback / softback
- Pages:
- 256
- Published:
- Publisher:
- Penguin Random House Australia
- Imprint:
- Viking Australia