2015 Longlist
Frustrated by country life and eager for adventure and excitement, seventeen-year-old Tom Button moves to the city to study. Once there, and living in a run-down apartment block called Cairo, he is befriended by the eccentric musician Max Cheever, his beautiful wife Sally, and their close-knit circle of painters and poets. As Tom falls under the sway of his charismatic older friends, he enters a bohemian world of parties and gallery openings. Soon, however, he is caught up in more sinister events involving deception and betrayal, not to mention one of the greatest unsolved art heists of the twentieth century: the infamous theft of Picasso’s Weeping Woman.
Set among the demimonde – where nothing and nobody is as they seem – Cairo is a novel about growing up, the perils of first love, and finding one’s true place in the world.
(From Publisher)
About the Author
Chris Womersley’s debut novel, The Low Road, won the Ned Kelly Award for Best First Fiction. His second novel, Bereft, won the Australian Book Industry Award for Literary Fiction and the Indie Award for Fiction; was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award, The Age Book of the Year, the Australian Society of Literature Gold Medal and the UK’s Gold Dagger award; and was longlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. Bereft and The Low Road have been translated into a number of languages. Chris’s short fiction has appeared in Granta, The Best Australian Stories 2006, ’10, ’11 & ’12, Griffith Review, Wet Ink and Meanjin; and one of his stories was shortlisted for the BBC International Short Story Award in 2012. He lives in Melbourne with his wife and son.
Librarian’s Comments
Cairo was selected by Victoria public librarian vote from a list of nominations complied by the State Library of Victoria.