Myriad signs 'searing' Heyman memoir

Myriad Editions has signed novelist Kathryn Heyman's "inspiring and searingly honest memoir" of a working class girl growing up in Australia.

Publishing director Candida Lacey bought world English language rights excluding ANZ via Isobel Dixon of Blake Friedmann. Fury will be published in September 2020 following Allen & Unwin’s publication in Australia in July.

The synopsis explains: "No matter how far she travels as she hitchhikes across Australia, Kacey can’t outrun the stigma or the memories that haunt her: the stain of poverty, the family who cares little for her, and the trauma of a rape trial in which her attacker, the taxi driver taking her home, is found not guilty.

"Sharp, sassy, clinging to her love of literature and determined not to be broken, she accepts a job on a fishing boat in the Timor Sea. A girl among tough working men and literally all at sea, she faces treachery as well as questions about her origins, purpose and identity. But when a furious storm breaks aboard The Ocean Thief, she learns how to fashion a new story for herself—one in which she can grasp a future that is different from the little that was always expected of her; one in which she is strong enough to be the hero."

Heyman is the author of six novels, is currently the director of the Australian Writers Mentoring Program, has written several radio plays for the BBC, and teaches for the Faber Academy.

Lacey said: "As joyous as it is painful, Fury is destined to take its place with the great feminist memoirs of our times. Kathryn writes with wry wit and tough honesty about her unruly upbringing in an inhospitable place. She paints a vivid picture of how it feels to be a girl in the world and, in particular, how it feels to be a working-class girl in the world."