Writer’s first novel shortlisted as Book of the Year

17 September 2001

In an honour usually reserved for established writers, a University of Wollongong lecturer has had his first novel, Flying in Silence, shortlisted as The Melbourne Age’s Book of the Year.

For Associate Professor Gerry Turcotte, the book marks the end of a 10-year struggle with an intensely personal story – one that charts the life of a young boy trapped in a dysfunctional family with a father who can’t speak English and a mother who can’t speak French.

Set in Montreal, Canada, and in Australia, the French Canadian author has used the book to talk about the process of living between worlds, and for thinking about issues of migration.

“We may not all be bilingual, but most of us have some measure of biculturality – we are British-Australians, Aboriginal-Australians, Greek-Australians – and we live between worlds almost all the time,” Professor Turcotte said.

Flying in Silence, which has received uniformly rave reviews, has been published in Australia by Brandl & Schlesinger. The book has already been reprinted once in less than three months.

One of the Book of the Year judges described Flying in Silence as a “beautifully crafted novel about growing up, full of humour, warmth and a strangely comfortable melancholy”.

Professor Turcotte is the Head of the English Studies Program at UOW.