Universe, Milky Way, Solar System, Earth, Australia, South Australia, Penola, Church Street, 26. The year is 1964 and 14-year-old Robbie Burns is about to learn a whole lot more about the world and his place in it. Into the small town of Penola comes Miss Pamela Peach, the new schoolteacher in fashionable stirrup pants and upswept hair, perched atop a Vespa. More interesting than rabbiting or getting into scrapes with his friend Billy, Miss Peach offers Robbie a world beyond anything he has imagined. As Robbie discovers his emerging sexuality, Miss Peach also becomes the object of his sexual fantasies. But what starts out as a schoolboy crush will end in tragedy, and Robbie’s life will be scarred forever.

Everything I Knew is a provocative novel that examines the notions of adolescence and childhood innocence, forcing us to confront our own need to believe in the latter. It is also a subtle and affecting examination of the way we choose to remember, what we forget and what we must believe if we are to survive.