Beautiful Revolutionary

£12.99 GBP

Beautiful Revolutionary

Overview

The thrilling new novel, inspired by the events at Jonestown in the 1970s.

It’s the summer of 1968, and Evelyn Lynden is a woman at war with herself. Minister’s daughter. Atheist. Independent woman. Frustrated wife. Bitch with a bleeding heart.

Following her conscientious-objector husband Lenny to the rural Eden of Evergreen Valley, California, Evelyn wants to be happy with their new life. Yet she finds herself disillusioned with Lenny’s passive ways — and anxious for a saviour. Enter the Reverend Jim Jones, the dynamic leader of a new revolutionary church …

Meticulously researched and masterfully written, Beautiful Revolutionary explores the allure of the real-life charismatic leader who would destroy so many. It follows Evelyn as she is pulled into Jones’s orbit — an orbit it would prove impossible for her to leave.

Details

Format
Paperback
Size
234mm x 153mm
Extent
416 pages
ISBN
9781911617594
RRP
GBP£12.99
Pub date
14 February 2019
Rights held
World English Language

Awards

  • Shortlisted for the 2019 Australian Literature Society Gold Medal
  • Shortlisted for the 2019 Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Fiction

Praise

‘Woollett has wisely chosen to forgo the fetishism of death and Jim Jones that is so often the focus of this tragedy. With Beautiful Revolutionary, Woollett has created an utterly intoxicating portrait of the lives of those seeking to build something new in a world that seemed to be losing its mind. Although we know what awaits us, Woollett masterfully weaves a suspenseful and complex story about people — of their dreams, beliefs, ideals, and lives all coming to a horrific end — in a way that is uniquely hers. Woollett is electric.’

Sarah Schmidt, author of See What I Have Done

‘Laura Woollett’s imaginative retelling of the Jonestown tragedy does what only fiction can do — endows Jim Jones and his inner circle with a sense of humanity. She formulates answers to unknowable questions — how could otherwise sane people be pulled into Jones’s web of evil? What happened that last, tragic day? A lyrical and sharply rendered tale of innocence lost and ideals betrayed.’

Julia Scheeres, author of A Thousand Lives: The Untold Story of Jonestown
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About the Author

Laura Elizabeth Woollett is the author of a short story collection, The Love of a Bad Man (Scribe, 2016), and two novels, Beautiful Revolutionary (Scribe, 2018) and The Newcomer (Scribe, 2021). The Love of a Bad Man was shortlisted for the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Fiction and the Ned Kelly Award for Best First Fiction. Beautiful Revolutionary was shortlisted for the 2019 Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Fiction, the Australian Literature Society Gold Medal, and the Kathleen Mitchell Award. Laura was the City of Melbourne’s 2020 Boyd Garret writer-in-residence and a 2020-22 Marten Bequest scholar for prose.

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