A masterful collection of horizons and departures, heartbreak and seduction, from an internationally acclaimed Australian author.
These superbly crafted stories follow the fates of characters who, by choice or by force, are travelling beyond the boundaries of their known worlds. We meet them negotiating reluctant partings, navigating uncertain returns or biding the disquieting calm that often precedes decisive action.
An agoraphobic French émigré watches disturbing terrorist footage as she minds a dog named Chavez. A young couple weather the interiority of a Montreal winter, more attuned to the illicit goings-on of their neighbours than to their own hazy, unfolding futures. A Melbourne writer of real-estate listings reflects on the stifling power of shared history as she wonders what life might be like over the fence. Other stories play out in places just beyond the brink of familiarity: flooded townships and distant lakes, sunlit woodlands or paths bright with ice, places of unpredictable access and spaces scrubbed from maps.
From the Catskill Mountains to Snowy Mountains, the abandoned island outports of Newfoundland to the sprawl of an Australian metropolis, this scintillating collection from one of Australia’s most gifted writers shows us how the places we inhabit shape us in ways both remote and intimate.
About the Author
Josephine Rowe was born in 1984 in Rockhampton and raised in Melbourne. Her novel, A Loving, Faithful Animal, was longlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award, selected as a New York Times Editors’ Choice and led to her being named a 2017 Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Novelist. Her work has appeared widely in Australia and overseas, including in McSweeney’s, Best Australian Stories, Meanjin, The Paris Review Daily and Freeman’s.
The winner of the 2016 ABR Elizabeth Jolley Short Story Prize, Rowe has held fellowships with the University of Iowa, Stanford University, the Omi International Arts Center and Yaddo.
Industry Reviews
‘Her gorgeous, precise language encourages inner storms.’
The New York Times Book Review
‘A nuanced, lyrical and masterful collection from one of Australia's short-fiction greats, Here Until August will leave you breathless.’
Maxine Beneba Clarke
‘Here Until August tracks the shimmer of precarious moments and transient moods with devastating precision. In their steady excavation of intimacy, these spacious stories bring Alice Munro to mind. I underlined sentence after sentence as I read: for their beauty, their clarity and their wisdom. Josephine Rowe is a breathtakingly good writer, and this is a marvellous book.’
Michelle de Kretser
‘With this vital collection, Rowe reveals in fresh ways her rare mastery of the short-story form. Ever sensitive to the subtleties of exile and longing, her voice is tender and mesmerising throughout. This is fiction that runs deep and burns bright.’
Jennifer Mills, award-winning short story writer and author of Dyschronia
