HOUSE OF STICKS

Bonnie, never domestically inclined, has given up her life as a musician to become a stay-at-home mother to three small children. She tells herself she has no regrets, but sometimes the isolation and endless drudgery are overwhelming, and threaten to swamp the love between Bonnie and her partner, Pete.

Her almost-happy life is disrupted by the arrival of a character from her husband's past. Doug, an old mate of Pete's, is eccentric and intrusive, a lame duck who drifts in and then never seems to leave, bringing trouble with him. His unsettling presence provides the catalyst for this very suspenseful novel.

When both Bonnie's and Pete's allegiances are tested, and the cracks really start to show in the life they've built together, it seems the dangers might not come only from outside but from within as well.

HOUSE OF STICKS is a revealing portrait of domestic life. It's about trying to stay connected in a disconnected society: a story of identity and community, loyalty and love.

"Peggy Frew's crystalline eye observes the shoreline of domestic life ... Helen Garner meets Henry James in this suburban gothic, where innocence can turn to menace in a moment, love to resentment, and trust to prickling suspicion." - Kate Veitch

Peggy Frew's debut novel, HOUSE OF STICKS, won the 2010 Victorian Premier's Literary Awards for an unpublished manuscript. Peggy is a member of the critically acclaimed and award-winning Melbourne band Art of Fighting. Her story ‘Home Visit' won The Age short story competition in 2009, and another story, Highwayman, was highly commended in the University of Canberra National Short Story Competition. Her stories have appeared in New Australian Stories 2, Kill Your Darlings, and Meanjin.