The Secret Lives of Men

Georgia Blain

'Subtle, beautifully paced stories … a finely tuned collection, thoughtfully written and arranged, with profound and unsettling things to say about love, loneliness, and risk.'

Denise O'Dea, Australian Book Review

'[A] skilled, disenchanted reckoning of the way we live now.'

Peter Pierce, The Saturday Age

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'There's a quiet, understated quality to her prose, an introspection in her narrative that makes her words glow dully with slow-burning intensity … Relationships in all their combinations and permutations are skilfully dissected by an author with a keen eye and a firm grasp.'

Thuy On, The Sun-Herald & The Age

'Blain's achievement with the short story form is to render it a mid point between the overt artifice of fiction and the covert artifice of life-writing … her stories fill up with ambiguity … characterised by an irresolution that mimics the resistance of experience to shape and comprehension.'

Stella Clarke, The Weekend Australian

'Richly imagined characters … told with lovely restraint. The authenticity of the writing is such that you feel you are standing in the shoes of these characters whose lives are at a particularly intense point'

Herald Sun

'Blain's style is refreshingly lean and plain but all her stories are rich with digressions, pregnant gaps, suggestions of further dimensions that beg to be explored'

Katharine England, Adelaide Advertiser

'Told with subtlety, tenderness and skill, The Secret Lives of Men displays Georgia Blain’s superb ability to convey both the joys and struggles of daily life and its impact on each of us. Blain is a gifted writer: through her storytelling we come to know ourselves better.'

Tony Birch

'A haunting, unsentimental exploration of the vexations and joys of modern life, family, love and desire.'

Kirsten Tranter

'It is the mark of a superior book of short stories when each contribution is able to stand in its own bold outline, yet also go to make something more and whole. This is such a book … It is a mature work from an author with a special sensibility and a comprehending, humane outlook.'

Judges' comments, NSW Premier's Literary Awards 2014

'Many adjectives have been used to describe Georgia Blain’s work, including evocative, powerful, atmospheric, haunting, rich, thought-provoking, skilful, uncompromising and finely detailed — all of which apply to this collection of short stories.'

Bookseller + Publisher

The Secret Lives of Men is an exceptional collection by one of Australia’s leading writers.

In these thirteen short stories, Georgia Blain examines human nature in all its richness: our motivations, our desires and our shortcomings. The men in these tales frequently linger at the edges — their longings and failures exerting a subterranean pull on the women in their lives. In ‘The Secret Lives of Men’, a woman revisits her hometown and learns a long-held secret about her first boyfriend. In ‘The Bad Dog Park’, a man’s devotion to his dog ultimately forces him to confront his true hopes and fears. And in ‘The Other Side of the River’, we watch as a woman makes a snap decision about her life’s future direction, with devastating consequences for her family. Written in Blain’s trademark unadorned yet powerful prose, these stories resonate long after they are finished.

'Subtle, beautifully paced stories … a finely tuned collection, thoughtfully written and arranged, with profound and unsettling things to say about love, loneliness, and risk.'

Denise O'Dea, Australian Book Review

'[A] skilled, disenchanted reckoning of the way we live now.'

Peter Pierce, The Saturday Age

View all reviews

Thuy On, The Sun-Herald & The Age

Stella Clarke, The Weekend Australian

Herald Sun

'Blain's style is refreshingly lean and plain but all her stories are rich with digressions, pregnant gaps, suggestions of further dimensions that beg to be explored'

Katharine England, Adelaide Advertiser

Tony Birch

'A haunting, unsentimental exploration of the vexations and joys of modern life, family, love and desire.'

Kirsten Tranter

Judges' comments, NSW Premier's Literary Awards 2014

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Details

Format:Paperback

Size: 8.27in × 5.31in

Extent:256pp

ISBN (13):9781922070357

RRP:$14.95

Pub date:24 Mar 2013

High-res cover:Download Image

AWARDS

2014 Christina Stead Prize for Fiction in the NSW Premier's Literary Awards - Short-listed 2014 Kibble Literary Award - Long-listed

CATEGORIES / tags

AUTHOR

Georgia Blain

Georgia Blain published novels for adults and young adults, essays, short stories, and a memoir. Her first novel was the bestselling Closed for Winter, which was made into a feature film. Her books have been shortlisted for numerous awards including the NSW, Victorian, and SA Premiers’ Literary Awards, the ALS Gold Medal, the Stella Prize, and the Nita B. Kibble Award for her memoir Births Deaths Marriages. Georgia’s works include The Secret Lives of Men, Too Close to Home, and the YA novel Darkwater. In 2016, Georgia published Between a Wolf and a Dog and the YA novel Special (Penguin Random House Australia). Between a Wolf and a Dog was shortlisted for the 2017 Stella Prize, and was awarded the 2017 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Fiction and the 2016 University of Queensland Fiction Book Award. Georgia passed away in December 2016.