The Mint Lawn

Winner of the 1990 Australian/Vogel Award, GIllian Meares' debut novel is set on the north coast of New South Wales and tells the story of the varied relationships and personal growth of a 25-year-old woman in a rural community.

North Coast, New South Wales. Clementine is twenty-five and still living in the place where she grew up, rooted there by memories and her own inability to make changes until she has understood her past. The past is dominated by memories of her mother, and her mother, and her mother's attempts to dramatise and enrich small-town life and the perceptions of her three clever, receptive daughters.

But only Clementine has stayed. Is this out of loyalty to her mother's memory? Or to comfort her father? Perhaps she wants to find peace with Hugh, her earnest husband in whose house she most uncomfortably lives? Or is the lure Thomas, who alone can appreciate Clementine's own sensuality, and her humour, but who must remain another of her secrets.

In The Mint Lawn, Gillian Mears has written a wonderful debut novel which will be read with pleasure and remembered with joy.

'Gillian Mears writes like an angel.' - Kate Veitch, The Age
'... powerful and beautifully balanced.' - Katharine England, Adelaide Advertiser

About the Author

Gillian Mears grew up in the northern New South Wales town of Grafton. Acclaim came early, with her short-story collections and novels winning major prizes. Her books include Ride a Cock Horse (1988), Fineflour (1990), winner of a Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book, The Mint Lawn (1991) winner of the Australian/Vogel Literary Award, and The Grass Sister (1995), winner of the regional Commonwealth Prize for Best Book. A Map of the Gardens (2002) won the 2003 Steele Rudd Australian Short Story Award.