Truth is not a destination - it's a magical ride. Addy Loest is harbouring a secret - several, in fact. Dedicated overthinker, frockaholic and hard-partyer, she's been doing all she can to avoid the truth for quite some time.
A working-class girl raised between the Port Kembla Steelworks and the surf of the Illawarra coast, Addy is a fish out of water at the prestigious University of Sydney. She's also the child of German immigrants, and her broken-hearted widower dad won't tell her anything about her family's tragic past.
But it's 1985, a time of all kinds of excess, from big hair to big misogyny, and distractions are easy. Distractions, indeed, are Addy's best skill - until one hangover too many leads her to meet a particular frock and a particular man, each of whom will bring all her truths hurtling home.
Told with Kim Kelly's incomparable warmth and wit, The Truth & Addy Loest is a magical trip through shabby-chic inner-city Sydney, a tale of music and moonlight, literature and love - and of discovering the only story that really matters is the one you write for yourself.
Praise for Kim Kelly
'Consummate storytelling.' - Tracy Sorensen, The Lucky Galah
'alive, full-hearted and shimmering with hope' - Belinda Castles, Bluebottle
'an author who writes with such a striking sense of atmosphere and sublime instinct' - Theresa Smith Writes
'It is uplifting to know that there are people who can write like this, with clarity, a bit of devilment and a hint of a smile.' - Canberra Times
'marvellous depth and authenticity based on some impressive research, and her characters, plot and fluid prose draw the reader into this world' - Daily Telegraph
'colourful, evocative and energetic' - Sydney Morning Herald
'told with wit, warmth and courage' - Kylie Mason, The Newtown Review of Books
'Kim writes like no one else, with a depth of skill few authors achieve.' - Kelly Rimmer, The Things We Cannot Say
'a literary page-turner ... Kim Kelly is a talented and courageous story-teller' - Cassie Hamer, The End of Cuthbert Close
Author Biography:
Kim Kelly is the author of ten novels, including the acclaimed Wild Chicory and perennial bestseller The Blue Mile. With distinctive warmth and lyrical charm, her work explores Australia, its history and people, its quirks and contradictions, from colonial invasion times to the present, and from the red-dirt roads of the outback to its glittering cities. An editor, reviewer and literary consultant by trade, stories fill her everyday - most nights, too - and it's love that fuels her intellectual engine. In fact, she takes love so seriously she once donated a kidney to her husband to prove it, and also to save his life. Originally from Sydney, today Kim lives on a small rural property in central New South Wales just outside the tiny gold-rush village of Millthorpe, where the ghosts are mostly friendly and her grown sons regularly come home to graze.
