Dark Matters: A novel

Susan Hawthorne

When Desi inherits her aunt Kate’s house in Brunswick she begins to read the contents of the boxes in the back room. She discovers a hidden life, one which could not be shared with Kate’s family. Susan Hawthorne’s dark story uncovers the hidden histories of fear and uncertainty. The author asks: how do we pass on stories hidden by both shame and resistance to shame? A novel that is poetic and terrifying.

Dark Matters is a transformative tour de force; lyrical as Sappho and revolutionary as Wittig in Les Guérillères.

- —Roberta Arnold, Sinister Wisdom

Dark Matters is a meteoroid. When it hits, it will make a different world of you.

- —Hayley Singer, Cordite Poetry Review

Hawthorne depicts a lesbian under siege, her personhood, psychic, and personal boundaries all compromised by systems which cannot accept her ... The resulting text is something profoundly important. Dark Matters is a war-cry. It is a declaration of personhood and reclamation of identity from the traumas induced by these dark histories.

- —Mel O’Connor, Mascara Literary Review

Release: Sep-2017

ISBN: 9781925581089

RRP (AUD): $26.95

Pages: 192

Format: Paperback & ebook

Category: lesbian,violence against women

Susan Hawthorne

Susan Hawthorne is the author of two previous novels, The Falling Woman and Limen (a verse novel). Her poetry collection Cow was shortlisted for the 2012 Kenneth Slessor Poetry Prize and was a 2012 Finalist for the Audre Lorde Lesbian Poetry Prize (USA). She used to be an aerialist in a circus.