Winner of the 2018 Viva La Novella Prize

From teenage rebellion to the most painful of goodbyes, The Bed-making Competition chronicles the coming of age of Hillary and Bridgid. Told over five sections, each separated by years and kilometres, we follow the sisters as they manage abandonment, motherhood, illness and the ineffable connections of the families that we are born into and those that we create. Spiked with dark humour and bracingly familiar depictions of the overwhelming ambivalence of filial love, Anna Jackson’s novella is a book of riotous energy and great heart.