Literature Prize 2010

Comments by Sally Breen & Frank Moorhouse

First prize: ‘The Geometry Lesson’ by Jewelene Barrile
This story, about a young girl witnessing the disintegration of her parent’s relationship is both potent and subtly drawn. The distance between how the narrator views her father and how her mother sees him is strung tight with a developing tension and misunderstanding which is heartbreakingly rendered. The familial plot is powerful and moving and perhaps enhanced by the idea that the story is also about stories, about imagination, and the things we tell ourselves and those closest to us to avoid the harsher edge of reality.

Second prize: ‘Steeple Chase’ by Krissy Kneen
'Steeple Chase' is a playful story with a fairytale quality but like the best fairytales it does not shy away from the blood and gore, from the physical and the sensual, the dark places so close to the light, the funny and the uncomfortable. The story focuses on the rivalry between two sisters and the different ways the power between them and the world is negotiated - the terrible fury of one sister, the sneaky, naughty pleasure-seeking of the other. The snail trail scenes are quite unforgettable and like much of this story return to the reader again and again.

Commended: ‘The Early Hours of the Morning’ by Bronwyn Lea
This somewhat unusual, very original story is introspective, told from the view of an obsessive man faced with the death of his father, beset by preoccupations with time and death and relationship. The obsessive preoccupation of the narrative winds its way around the speeding bullet which killed the narrator’s father and also the narrator’s own obsessiveness which has somehow killed his marriage.

Commended: ‘Ruined Girls’ by Felicity Plunkett
This powerful story is an introspective account of a woman’s handling of miscarriage, of pregnancy, and of the question of how many children should a contemporary woman consider having in the making of ‘family’. It also deals with the stresses surrounding the having of children, including a jaundiced aunt, and on the body of the woman and the struggle to retain physical beauty.