Original title: Jack and Jill

Published by The Text Publishing Company, 2011,

First published by Gerald Duckworth & Co., 1978

Translated into ITALIAN by Valentina Rossini 

Cover illustration by Guido Capoferri

(Number of pages 143)
 

"What distinguishes Jack and Jill, Helen Hodgman's second novel, is her tone of voice: it is unique, entirely her own, owing nothing, as far as I can discern, to other Australian novelists, yet at the same time distinctively Australian...there's formidable talent here."

Sunday Times

 

 

WINNER OF THE SOMERSET MAUGHAM AWARD

In the outback, far away from Sydney, life goes by in a quite uncomplicated manner for Douggie and his daughter Jill. 

Until one evening Jack arrives on their farm, and from that point on, things take a much more twisted turn for them. 

From the Great Depression to the Swinging Sixties, the not so ordinary love story of Jack and Jill is narrated with that subtle dark humour that characterises all of Helen Hodgman’s works.

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Helen Hodgman was born in Scotland in 1945 and lived in England until 1958, when she sailed with her family to Tasmania. After some time she went back to England, and stayed there for ten years, doing various jobs to sustain herself, including bookmaker’s accountant. She also lived in Canada.

In 1975 she wrote her first novel Blue Skies published and re-published by Penguin, Virago Press, The Text Publishing. 

Two years later Helen published another successful novel, Jack and Jill, (Italian edition, Jack & JIll) winner of the Somerset Maughman Award, which has been republished various times. Later, she returned to Australia and wrote Broken Words (1988), winner of the Christina Stead Prize, Passing Remarks (1996), Waiting for Matindi (1998), and her last novel The Bad Policeman (2001). For health reasons Helen has had to gradually stop writing books. Sadly, Helen has recently passed away. We honour and remember her and her brilliant works.