Book Launch - Lead Us Not by Abbey Lay
Event description
We invite you to join us for a conversation with Abbey Lay about her debut novel Lead Us Not.
Lead Us Not is an emotionally charged novel of female friendship, for readers of Elena Ferrante and Diana Reid.
Lead Us Not is a coming-of-age novel for grown-ups, exploring the ways in which we are blind to one another. In a society increasingly of ‘no religion’, what is it that Australians hope to purchase or protect when they commit their children to single-sex private school education in growing numbers? This emotionally charged, wryly observant novel of attraction, expectation and desire will appeal to readers of Love and Virtue and One Hundred Days.
Millie is in her final year at a Catholic girls’ school, subdued by the conformity of her life and her parents’ quiet pain. But when her schoolmate Olive moves in next door, it marks the beginning of an intoxicating friendship that changes everything. In all the ways Millie feels unsure and half-formed, Olive, an aspiring actor from a devoutly Catholic family, seems at ease with her place in the world.
On the precipice of freedom, the two young women seize nights out and a school retreat as opportunities to further their own increasingly uncertain ends. Olive urges Millie on in her sexual encounters, but Millie is only becoming more consumed by Olive. When they’re not staying up all night talking, they’re watching each other from their bedroom windows – their selves are becoming blurred, their lives intimately mirrored.
That makes it all the more excruciating when, seemingly out of nowhere, Olive cuts off all contact. For all her efforts, Millie cannot understand what’s changed between them. Has she missed something? Or was their friendship, for Olive, just another performance?
About the author: Abbey Lay grew up in Geelong and now lives in Melbourne. Lead Us Not is her first novel, which was shortlisted for the Victorian Premier's Award for an Unpublished Manuscript.
Come along for an engaging conversation as Abbey Lay discusses this release and her literary journey with Barbie Robinson from Living Arts Canberra.
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