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  • Published: 1 September 2009
  • ISBN: 9781742287164
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 304

Six Clever Girls Who Became Famous Women



On 22 September 1960, six girls gather behind the school toilets to read Peyton Place: Caroline the leader, Heather the caregiver, Kathy the actress, Raeleen the explorer, Greer the mystic and Margie the rebel. Like the historical heroines whose stories are repeatedly held up to them as models, these girls confront in their various ways the uncertainty and fears of adolescence.
On 22 September 1995 we meet them again, confronting the issues of middle age. Caroline's on the way up, Raeleen's now Ra, Margie climbs higher and higher. They re all relearning in the process the joy of making that vital, terrifying, thrilling leap 'out into the sun'...

  • Published: 1 September 2009
  • ISBN: 9781742287164
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 304

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.’

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