Thank you also to everyone at Text, for believing in this book and helping it make its way into the world.
Finally, I would like to thank the people who have supported not just this book, but everything I have ever written: my mother Chris, my father Geoff, my sister Jenny and my brother Scott. I may not always be the greatest son or brother, but you are the best family I could ever ask for.
NOTE: Emily has insisted that I also acknowledge our cat, Zelda, who stalked, headbutted and generally harassed me during almost every moment I was writing this book. So, bad luck, Zelda—your efforts to thwart me have failed.
Robbie Arnott was born in Launceston in 1989. His writing has appeared in the Lifted Brow, Island, Kill Your Darlings and the 2017 anthology Seven Stories. He won the 2015 Tasmanian Young Writers’ Fellowship and the 2014 Scribe Nonfiction Prize for Young Writers. Robbie lives in Hobart and is an advertising copywriter.
@RobbieArnott
ADVANCE PRAISE FOR FLAMES
‘A strange and joyous marvel.’
RICHARD FLANAGAN,
author of the Man Booker Prize-winning
The Narrow Road to the Deep North
‘Visionary, vivid, full of audacious
transformations: there’s a marvellous energy
to this writing that returns the world to us aflame.
A brilliant and wholly original debut.’
GAIL JONES,
award-winning author of Five Bells
and A Guide to Berlin
‘Ambitious storytelling from a stunning new
Australian voice. Flames is constantly surprising—
I never knew where the story would take me next.
This book has a lovely sense of wonder for the
world. It’s brimming with heart and compassion.’
ROHAN WILSON,
award-winning author of The Roving Party
and To Name Those Lost
‘Robbie Arnott is a vivid and bold new
voice in Australian fiction.’
DANIELLE WOOD,
award-winning author of The Alphabet of
Light and Dark and Mothers Grimm
textpublishing.com.au
The Text Publishing Company
Swann House
22 William Street
Melbourne Victoria 3000
Australia
Copyright © Robbie Arnott, 2018
The moral right of Robbie Arnott to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted.
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright above, no part of this publication shall be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.
Published by The Text Publishing Company, 2018
Cover design by W. H. Chong
Underlying cover image: Harry Kelly, Tasmania, the Wonderland (193?), colour lithograph on paper, Tasmanian Government Tourist Bureau, courtesy of the Tasmanian Archive and Heritage Office
Page design by Jessica Horrocks
Typeset by J&M Typesetting
ISBN: 9781925603521 (paperback)
ISBN: 9781925626568 (ebook)
A catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of Australia
Flames Page 18
