When I ask Mandy Beaumont where her love of language began, she transports me to her childhood home in Redcliffe in the 1980s.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy father had a big influence on that,\u201d Beaumont says. \u201cHe was a typesetter for many, many years. He would bring home the old metal typeset things. And I would sit under the table and make poems and little lines out of them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Beaumont has been assembling poetry and stories in surprising and startling ways ever since. Her latest book,\u00a0The Thrill of It<\/em>, is released this week by Hachette Australia, with the Brisbane launch to be held at Avid Reader next month.<\/p>\n In some ways, the project is a departure for Beaumont, given it\u2019s her first work of crime fiction. In another sense, it\u2019s a homecoming.<\/p>\n \u201cI was brought up with a mother obsessed with true crime,\u201d she says. \u201cThe book is dedicated to her, because we talk about serial killers all the time. And I became really obsessed I suppose. I\u2019m the person you want to take to trivia night if they ask true crime questions.\u201d<\/p>\n The Thrill of It<\/em>\u00a0is a novel powered by the real-life murders of six elderly women in Sydney across 1989\u201390, and the cold case of legendary designer and artist Florence Broadhurst, who was born at Mt Perry near Bundaberg. The story focuses on Emmerson Kerr, a young woman who seeks to solve the murder of her grandmother Marlowe (a character inspired by Broadhurst). The killer is deliberately not named in the book.<\/p>\n \u201cI hope it gives voice to older women,\u201d Beaumont says. \u201cAs I age, I\u2019m really interested in why we become silenced. And I really wanted to make complex characters on the page, because so often in crime you don\u2019t see complex characters, especially women.\u201d<\/p>\n Despite her bookish childhood, Beaumont struggled with the structure and discipline of school and dropped out before moving out of home while still a teenager. A few years later, she enrolled in what was then Hendra Secondary College as a mature-aged student, where an English teacher nurtured her storytelling talent. Beaumont chose to study social science at QUT, where she found opportunities to write for student publications.<\/p>\n During her 20s and 30s Beaumont\u2019s writing was plastered across Brisbane \u2013 literally. Embracing a DIY aesthetic, she printed her poetry on stickers and undertook a guerrilla campaign to leave them in nightclub bathrooms and other unlikely places. She also produced and hosted independent spoken word and poetry events, collaborating with like-minded Brisbane performers including Leah Shelton and Amanda-Lyn Pearson.<\/p>\n \u201cI wanted to chuck words out in places that you don\u2019t traditionally find them, because I\u2019ve never found myself in traditional places,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n Eventually, Beaumont decided to return to QUT to complete her masters in creative writing. Her research component examined the work of Charles Bukowski, one of her muses. By her own estimation, the creative manuscript she produced, inspired by her favourite author Andrew McGahan, wasn\u2019t quite ready.<\/p>\n \u201cIt got sent out to a few publishers, and to be frank, it just wasn\u2019t good,\u201d she says. \u201cThe writing was good, but the structure wasn\u2019t. I didn\u2019t have a voice on the page.\u201d<\/p>\n Beaumont continued to write poetry and short stories, winning numerous competitions. Her big break came in 2018 when she entered a manuscript of short stories in The Richell Prize, one of the nation\u2019s most prestigious awards for emerging authors. She was shortlisted and received a two-book deal.\u00a0Wild, Fearless Chests\u00a0<\/em>was published in 2020, with her first novel,\u00a0The Furies<\/em>, released in 2022.\u00a0The Furies\u00a0<\/em>formed part of her PhD at RMIT and was longlisted for the Stella Prize.<\/p>\n Beaumont\u2019s family has been shaped by tragedy, and she does not shy away from depicting violence in her work.<\/p>\n \u201cMy nephew was murdered,\u201d she says. \u201cMy auntie took an overdose of pills. My uncle died an alcoholic. Some bad stuff\u2019s happened to me, inevitably, as a woman. So I feel like violence and grief always sits under my skin.\u201d<\/p>\n Beaumont credits Charles Bukowski for teaching her how to find the \u201csilver thread\u201d that glitters among the gory and gruesome.<\/p>\n \u201cI reckon that\u2019s where good writing happens,\u201d she says. \u201cThat\u2019s been a huge influence on me \u2013 that silver thread through the light in the darkness. The really horrendous with the really beautiful is such a nice space in which to create new meaning.\u201d<\/p>\n The Thrill of It<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0by Mandy Beaumont, Hachette Australia, $32.99.<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>Mandy launches\u00a0The Thrill of It<\/em>\u00a0in conversation with Matthew Condon at Avid Reader on March 21.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When I ask Mandy Beaumont where her love of language began, she transports me to her childhood home in Redcliffe in the 1980s<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1117,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55,5],"tags":[67],"class_list":["post-1116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-book-reviews","category-books","tag-recommended"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/futuredesignteam.in\/client\/politicus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/futuredesignteam.in\/client\/politicus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/futuredesignteam.in\/client\/politicus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/futuredesignteam.in\/client\/politicus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/futuredesignteam.in\/client\/politicus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1116"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/futuredesignteam.in\/client\/politicus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1116\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1118,"href":"https:\/\/futuredesignteam.in\/client\/politicus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1116\/revisions\/1118"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/futuredesignteam.in\/client\/politicus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/futuredesignteam.in\/client\/politicus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/futuredesignteam.in\/client\/politicus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/futuredesignteam.in\/client\/politicus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}