Where I Slept
Libby Angel
Where I Slept
Libby Angel
When he asks what kind of work I do, I tell him I am a poet.
'Poetry will break your heart,' he says.
'Or, perhaps it is the only thing that won't,' I say.
In this startling work of autofiction the unnamed narrator plunges us headlong into 1990s Melbourne bohemia-a whirlwind of friends and strangers, decadence and despair, sex and drugs-through the places she slept- a boarding house with drug-addled landlord, share houses of aspiring artists and petty criminals, and roughing it on the streets.
She lives for poetry and hungers for beauty, purpose and a place to anchor herself. Her voice is ironic, deadpan and darkly comic, an Artline marker her weapon of choice in expressing her presence in a city both richly accommodating and indifferent.
Libby Angel's brilliant new work is filled with characters you'll wish you knew and those you're glad you don't. Where I Slept is an unforgettable portrait of a life on the fringes, a poem of longing and desire.
Review
Alison Huber
Described as a work of autofiction, Where I Slept is firmly set in 1990s Melbourne and its streets, share houses, op-shops, squats, pubs, clubs, and cafes. Its narrator is found making and remaking her identity in the city in the years after finishing university, determined not to end up back in Tidy Town, the place where she was born. Along the way, she meets a range of creative people, who are, as she is, living on the margins of life in the growing metropolis, searching for connection and themselves through art.
Where I Slept is essentially a coming-of-age story, though the detail of what happens in its plot is – at least to this reader – far less important than the rich mood the author creates. This is an ode to an experience of a particular time and place. It’s a vision/version of a pre-hipster, grungy Melbourne, before the broad impact of inner-city gentrification, when one final generation came of age just before mobile technology and the internet brought the hyper-connectedness of the new millennium. Angel’s portrait of this time is affectionate but not nostalgic. It was not an easy time for many people, with the recession Australia famously ‘had to have’, unemployment and housing stress colliding with the heroin epidemic. The spectre of these factors is never far away; indeed, the narrator and her ragtag assemblage of acquaintances are living right inside these harsh realities, but she is determined, resourceful, and never defeated.
I sometimes find myself reflecting on what really draws me to and into a book and keeps me reading, and Where I Slept has had me thinking a lot about the way that a book’s atmosphere can take hold of my readerly imagination. Angel has created an intense period piece in this book, beautifully written, full of surprisingly funny detail and scenes that live beyond the page, with crisp dialogue that draws the reader (back) into this time now long past. Where I Slept really got to me, and I’m still thinking about it.
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