Jasper Jones author Craig Silvey announces new book!

It’s been eleven years since Jasper Jones first hit bookshelves and captured the hearts of readers everywhere – over 600,000 worldwide, to be precise. So, here’s some exciting news for fans of Aussie author Craig Silvey: his next book has just been announced!

Coming on the 29th of September and set in contemporary Western Australia, Honeybee is the new novel by Craig Silvey. Its publisher, Allen & Unwin, is calling it ‘a heart-breaking, life-affirming coming-of-age novel.’ It begins with the chance meeting of two troubled men on an overpass – fourteen-year-old Sam Watson and elderly Vic – and traces their stories to paint a picture of an unlikely friendship and lifesaving bond.

Craig Silvey (Photo by Daniel James Grant).

Silvey says, ‘I put everything I have into writing Honeybee. It tore me up, but it filled me with joy. I’m enormously proud of it.

‘When we submit to a narrator and let them lead us, it’s an exercise in profound empathy. When we live their story on the page, it’s an experience that changes us. A story has the potential to demystify and humanise. Between a constellation of letters and a willing reader, disparate lives intersect and adhere, bound by their commonalities and enriched by their differences. It’s part of the reason why I believe diversity is so vital to our culture.

‘At the thematic heart of Honeybee is the importance of support and understanding. It’s a very sincere, hopeful book.’

Honeybee‘s publisher, Jane Palfreyman, has nothing but high praise for the forthcoming novel and says that ‘Craig has delivered an exceptional piece of work brimming with love, humour and devastation, compassion and courage. It’s been a long wait for all those readers who so adored Jasper Jones, but I’m sure they’ll agree Honeybee is worth the wait. It’s a stunning and deeply moving novel.’

We throw around the words ‘modern classic’ a lot here in the Australian book world, but I have a feeling that if anyone is capable of living up to such high praise, it’s Craig Silvey.

—Honeybee by Craig Silvey (Allen & Unwin) will be released on the 29th of September.

Honeybee

by Craig Silvey

'Find out who you are, and live that life.'

Late in the night, fourteen-year-old Sam Watson steps onto a quiet overpass, climbs over the rail and looks down at the road far below. At the other end of the same bridge, an old man, Vic, smokes his last cigarette.

The two see each other across the void. A fateful connection is made, and an unlikely friendship blooms. Slowly, we learn what led Sam and Vic to the bridge that night. Bonded by their suffering, each privately commits to the impossible...

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Olivia Fricot

Olivia Fricot (she/her) is Booktopia's Senior Content Producer and editor of the Booktopian blog. She has too many plants and not enough bookshelves, and you can usually find her reading, baking, or talking to said plants. She is pro-Oxford comma.

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