The Quiet and the Loud

Judges' comments

Bushfire smoke and past events, equally suffocating, come to hang over future art student George during the gap between high school and university. When George’s estranged father tries urgently to contact her, she retreats to the safety of long kayak paddles on the harbour. There is tension, anxiety, uncertainty and grief around her. Her best friend Tess is pregnant at 18, and her other best friend Laz is heavily engaged in climate activism. Into this situation comes Calliope and the pull of desire, the possibility of love and understanding.

Helena Fox has drawn an exquisitely realised world around her protagonist — the shifting net of close relationships that surround George, supportive and restrictive in turn, and the palpable setting of Sydney in the difficult summer of 2019–20. When the traumatic events of George’s past are revealed, they are handed delicately to the reader at precisely the right moment. Fox’s writing hits hard in the body, walking a skilful line of truthfulness and hope.