A PLACE NEAR EDEN

"Because each time I send my mind back, I'm liable to change things."

How can we know the truth of our own lives? This question troubles Matilda, as she looks back at her childhood with her foster brother, Sem. Matilda remembers long hours at the swimming pool. Celeste, a girl who lived downstairs with her artist mother. Sem disappearing for hours, then days. Her father yelling in the driveway. A car coming to take Sem away. Five years later, Matilda is living in the city with her mother. Sem is now a memory she has locked away. Until, at a party, Matilda reconnects with Celeste and then Sem. When Celeste and Matilda move out to the coast near Eden, Sem follows, but as the long summer drags on, the atmosphere in the house becomes claustrophobic. Celeste becomes pregnant with Sem's child, and when Sem starts leaving again, for days or even weeks at a time, Matilda finds herself tormented by her anguish for the past. Why was Sem removed from their home all those years ago? Was Matilda to blame? The trio go out to the pub to celebrate Celeste's birthday, and as Matilda gets blackout drunk, Celeste and Sem fight violently. In the morning, Matilda wakes up scratched and hungover. Sem is once again gone. This time, for good. Matilda becomes consumed by the obsession to know what happened to Sem, and if she is responsible. A documentary about Sem's disappearance only serves to make things murkier, and soon Matilda faces legal trial. The filmmaker, the lawyers, the public and Matilda herself are all determined to tell a story of Sem's life that makes sense. But the truth struggles to fit into a neat story. A Place Near Eden is a story of haunted truth-seeking in a world where truth is elusive and memories unreliable, and we must ask how much we can trust ourselves and those closest to us. Nell Pierce is originally from Australia but lived in NY for a long time. She holds a Master of Fine Art in Fiction from the New School in New York City and has worked as an Associate Literary Agent at Sterling Lord Literistic for a little more than five years on the lists of Flip Brophy and Jim Rutman as well as her own. She has recently relocated to Melbourne with her partner, and they have just welcomed a daughter about two months ago.