Flames

by Robbie Arnott

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