The Skinny Louie Book (Penguin Award Winning Classics)
  • Published: 30 May 2016
  • ISBN: 9780143573753
  • Imprint: Penguin
  • Format: Hardback
  • Pages: 328
  • RRP: $29.99

The Skinny Louie Book (Penguin Award Winning Classics)

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Hardback
30 May 2016
EBook
1 Aug 2001
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Fiona Farrell's first novel – always moving, often hilarious – is a breathtakingly accomplished debut. It presents a head-on confrontation with a New Zealand psyche rarely found in history books.

Fiona Farrell's first novel – always moving, often hilarious – is a breathtakingly accomplished debut. It presents a head-on confrontation with a New Zealand psyche rarely found in history books.
Skinny Louie, daughter of Shanghai Lil, has a baby in the Begonia House on the day of the royal visit. Maura finds the baby and takes it home. Tia grows up with magical powers into the brave new world of the twenty-first century. Fiona Farrell's first novel – always moving, often hilarious – is a breathtakingly accomplished debut. It presents a head-on confrontation with a New Zealand psyche rarely found in history books.

The Skinny Louie Book won the 1993 New Zealand Book Award for Fiction.
  • Published: 30 May 2016
  • ISBN: 9780143573753
  • Imprint: Penguin
  • Format: Hardback
  • Pages: 328
  • RRP: $29.99
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About the author

Fiona Farrell

Fiona Farrell is one of New Zealand’s leading writers. Born in Oamaru and educated at the universities of Otago and Toronto, she has published volumes of poetry, collections of short stories, non-fiction works, and many novels.

Her first novel, The Skinny Louie Book, won the 1993 New Zealand Book Award for fiction. Other novels, poetry and non-fiction books have been shortlisted for the Montana and New Zealand Post Book Awards with four novels also nominated for the International Dublin IMPAC Award. In 2007 she received the Prime Minister’s Award for Fiction, and in 2012 was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to literature.

The Broken Book, a book of essays relating to the Christchurch earthquakes, was shortlisted for the non-fiction award in the 2012 Book Awards and critically greeted as the ‘first major artwork’ to emerge from the event. The Villa at the Edge of the Empire was also shortlisted for this award in 2016.

Her work, which The New Zealand Herald has praised for its ‘richness — of both theme and language’, has been published around the world, including in the US, France and the UK.

Beryl Fletcher praised Farrell for having ‘. . . the rare ability of turning the mundane events of domestic life into profound human experiences. Her writing is poetic, moving and literary.’

portrait photo of Fiona Farrell

Also by Fiona Farrell

The Deck
Decline and Fall on Savage Street
The Villa At the Edge of the Empire
Limestone
Book Book
Light Readings
The Strange Case of the Disappearing Body
See all

Praise for The Skinny Louie Book (Penguin Award Winning Classics)

'Strong, insightful and most importantly, thoroughly entertaining.' — Carolyn Wilder, Sunday Star

PRH, PRH

'A rich and sprawling book, gutsy and full of none-too-gentle humour.' — Gaelyn Gordon, Dominion

PRH, PRH

'A lucid and textured insight into the history of white working-class people in the twentieth century . . . haunting and dislocating . . .' — Carmel Bird, Australian Book Review

PRH, PRH

'. . . the first novel by the woman who is, I think, the most innovative and exciting short story writer in New Zealand today.' — Aorewa McLeod, ASA Journal

PRH, PRH

'a buoyantly ambitious work . . . The conflict of feelings aroused by The Skinny Louie Book is a tribute to its complexity, the richness of its sensibility and intellect. In ancient Ireland, Fiona Farrell would qualify as a poet of high deeds and stories . . . declaiming history and genealogy in order to show the people to themselves.' — Debra Daley, Listener

PRH, PRH