The Book Of Emmett

Editorial Reviews

"“Deborah Forster’s debut novel, THE BOOK OF EMMETT is wonderful ... Immediately engaging, it tells with grace and humour, panache and simplicity the story of a broken family. ... This is a story not of how people are crushed, but the many ways in which they survived. With humour and pain in equal intensity, Forster rips through one family’s search for love and scceptance.”" - Jennifer Levasseur, The Sydney Morning Herald

"Beginning with a fractious funeral ceremony on a hellishly hot day in Melbourne's west, The Book of Emmett - the first novel by Deborah Forster - patiently and painfully traces the lives to this point of an ordinary family. The father, Emmett Brown, is by turns cruel, capricious and charming. Forster analyses the physical and psychological damage that this combination of qualities causes Emmett's wife and children, as well as the bonds that they are compelled to form with each other. The novel's prose is elegiac. Its scenes of domestic life are jaggedly vivid. Forster has created an insightful anatomy of suburban Australia." - Judges 2010 Prime Minister's Literary Awards

"This is a powerful and emotional debut novel. Forster beautifully portrays the fear and shame experienced by this family but also the love and courage that sustains them." - Professor Robert Dixon, Chair Australian Literature, University of Sydney

"The central story is not new: a family growing up under the overwhelming shadow of domestic violence, and the generational legacy that entails. But the inventiveness of the telling, the dark seductiveness of the language, and the prickly complexity of the characters make this most familiar of stories original and surprising." - Jo Case, The Age

"A first novel of subtle achievement, The Book of Emmett stands out from a flood of tales on domestic abuse. Written with no-nonsense poise and leavened by wry humour, it never shies from the stunting consequences on the lives of those affected of the trauma of emotional and physical violence. Despite this, it is a poignant story of survival with memorable characters - a salute to tenacity and a touching marker of lost potential." - Miles Franklin Award judges

"... a powerful story. In this mature and strangely uplifting book, Forster neither sensationalises nor trivialises the enormity of the pain for those whose childhoods are denied them." - Mary Philip, The Courier Mail

"... the emergence of a significant literary voice ... an author with a promising future." - Jay Daniel Thompson, Australian Book Review

"Brilliant. A story of such gently savage emotional intensity it stays with you long after you've turned the last page." - Susan Duncan

"Deborah Forster is a writer in a class of her own. When a book makes you breathless with fear and love for the characters, and says a Kombi van 'handles like a dog on lino' you know it's wonderful. Deborah Forster has used an angel's phrasebook to make a story that's as beautiful as hope, as real as truth and as Australian as 50-50 cordial and Tic Toc biccies." - Kaz Cooke

"The Book of Emmett is a powerful and emotional debut novel from Deborah Forster which portrays the complex relationships in a broken family. Forster beautifully portrays the fear and shame experienced by this family but also the love and courage that sustains them." - Judges, Nita B Kibble Award