Overview

A meditation on writing, reading, first words, and last words. On a bright spring day in 2015, as Georgia Blain was mowing the lawn, she collapsed on a bed of blossoms, blood frothing at her mouth. Waking up to find herself in the back of an ambulance being rushed to hospital, she tries to answer questions, but is unable to speak. After the shock of a bleak prognosis--a tumor sitting right in the language center of her brain and a long, gruelling treatment schedule--she immediately turns to writing to rebuild her language and herself. At the same time, her mother moves into a nursing home with Alzheimer's; weeks earlier, her best friend and mentor had been diagnosed with the same brain tumor. All three of them are writers, with language at the core of their being. The Museum of Words is a meditation on writing, reading, first words and last words, picking up thread after thread as it builds on each story to become a much larger narrative. This idiosyncratic and deeply personal memoir is a writer's take on how language shapes us, and how often we take it for granted--until we are in danger of losing it.

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9781947534278

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Reviews

'Blain seamlessly reveals joys and complications of her family, and manages to provide some keen insights into the art and graft of telling stories ... Museum is calm and tender and wise and brisk.' --The Listener '[A] passionate, piercingly observed farewell to what Blain loved most in life ... its fragile strength, depth of insight and sheer hard-won existence make it a book to be read, treasured and shared as the parting gift it is.' FOUR STARS --Books+Publishing 'A powerful meditation on the power of language and writing ... wise, tender, and heart-rending.' --Nicole Abadee AFR 'The Museum of Words is a very powerful, private essay on the end of being, invested with an unshakeable sense of presence, of fellow-humanity. Also with true verbal beauty and lyrical evocativeness. With her last book Blain proves that one can indeed, and most significantly, go gently into that good night. ' --Mika Provata-Carlone Bookanista 'A fine short memoir that looks both inward and outward to tell a patchwork story of four women and their shifting relationships with one another and with words, their medium for living ... She does not try to make sense of what was happening and does not rail against fate's cruelty. She does not argue for voluntary euthanasia and even notes that her mother, once an advocate, went quiet on the subject after she became ill. Blain simply continues to write, her voice faltering only occasionally, until her final sentence.' --Susan Wyndham Weekend Australian

'A powerful meditation on the power of language and writing ... wise, tender, and heart-rending.' --Nicole Abadee AFR 'A fine short memoir that looks both inward and outward to tell a patchwork story of four women and their shifting relationships with one another and with words, their medium for living ... She does not try to make sense of what was happening and does not rail against fate's cruelty. She does not argue for voluntary euthanasia and even notes that her mother, once an advocate, went quiet on the subject after she became ill. Blain simply continues to write, her voice faltering only occasionally, until her final sentence.' --Susan Wyndham Weekend Australian 'The Museum of Words is a very powerful, private essay on the end of being, invested with an unshakeable sense of presence, of fellow-humanity. Also with true verbal beauty and lyrical evocativeness. With her last book Blain proves that one can indeed, and most significantly, go gently into that good night. ' --Mika Provata-Carlone Bookanista

Author Information

Georgia Blain published novels for adults and young adults, essays, short stories, and a memoir. Her first novel was the bestselling Closed for Winter, which was made into a feature film. Her books have been shortlisted for numerous awards including the NSW, Victorian, and SA Premiers' Literary Awards, the ALS Gold Medal, the Stella Prize, and the Nita B. Kibble Award for her memoir Births Deaths Marriages. Georgia's works include The Secret Lives of Men, Too Close to Home, and the YA novel Darkwater. In 2016, Georgia published Between a Wolf and a Dog and the YA novel Special (Penguin Random House Australia). Between a Wolf and a Dog was shortlisted for the 2017 Stella Prize, and was awarded the 2017 Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Fiction and the 2016 University of Queensland Fiction Book Award. Georgia passed away in December 2016.

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