Dark Roots

In these sublimely sophisticated tales, Cate Kennedy opens up worlds of finely observed detail. Her stories are populated by people at tipping points in their lives – moments that find them poised between a familiar past and an unfamiliar future. In The Testosterone Club, a neglected wife plans an unsavoury revenge on her boorish husband. In Resize, a married couple realise their too-tight wedding rings may symbolise wider aspects of their relationship. And in Cold Snap, a young boy senses that the newly arrived tree changer may have some sinister intents. Heartbreaking, evocative and richly comic, Dark Roots unveils the traumas that incite us to desperate measures, and the coincidences that drive our lives.

About the Author

Cate Kennedy is an Australian author based in Victoria. She graduated from University of Canberra and has also taught at several colleges, including The University of Melbourne. She is the author of the highly acclaimed novel The World Beneath, which won the People’s Choice Award in the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards in 2010. It was also shortlisted for The Age fiction prize 2010 and the ASA Barbara Jefferis Award 2010, among others. She is an award-winning short-story writer whose work has twice won The Age Short Story Competition and has appeared in a range of publications, including The New Yorker. Her collection, Dark Roots, was shortlisted for the Steele Rudd Award in the Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards and for the Australian Literature Society Gold Medal. Cate is also the author of the travel memoir Sing, and Don’t Cry, and the poetry collections Joyflight and Signs of Other Fires. Her latest book is The Taste of River Water: New and Selected Poems by Cate Kennedy, which was published in May 2011 and won the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards CJ Dennis Prize for Poetry.