The Truth & Addy Loest
About this ebook
Addy Loest is harbouring a secret - several, in fact. Dedicated overthinker, frockaholic and hard-partyer, she's been doing all she can to avoid the truth for quite some time.
A working-class girl raised between the Port Kembla Steelworks and the surf of the Illawarra coast, Addy is a fish out of water at the prestigious University of Sydney. She's also the child of German immigrants, and her broken-hearted widower dad won't tell her anything about her family's tragic past.
But it's 1985, a time of all kinds of excess, from big hair to big misogyny, and distractions are easy. Distractions, indeed, are Addy's best skill - until one hangover too many leads her to meet a particular frock and a particular man, each of whom will bring all her truths hurtling home.
Told with Kim Kelly's incomparable warmth and wit, The Truth & Addy Loest is a magical trip through shabby-chic inner-city Sydney, a tale of music and moonlight, literature and love - and of discovering the only story that really matters is the one you write for yourself.
Praise for Kim Kelly
'Consummate storytelling.' - Tracy Sorensen, The Lucky Galah
'alive, full-hearted and shimmering with hope' - Belinda Castles, Bluebottle
'an author who writes with such a striking sense of atmosphere and sublime instinct' - Theresa Smith Writes
'It is uplifting to know that there are people who can write like this, with clarity, a bit of devilment and a hint of a smile.' - Canberra Times
'marvellous depth and authenticity based on some impressive research, and her characters, plot and fluid prose draw the reader into this world' - Daily Telegraph
'colourful, evocative and energetic' - Sydney Morning Herald
'told with wit, warmth and courage' - Kylie Mason, The Newtown Review of Books
'Kim writes like no one else, with a depth of skill few authors achieve.' - Kelly Rimmer, The Things We Cannot Say
'a literary page-turner ... Kim Kelly is a talented and courageous story-teller' - Cassie Hamer, The End of Cuthbert Close
About the author
Kim is a writer of Australian fiction, author of eleven novels – Black Diamonds, This Red Earth, The Blue Mile, Paper Daisies, Wild Chicory, Jewel Sea, Lady Bird & The Fox, Sunshine, Walking, Her Last Words and The Truth & Addy Loest – tales of passion, politics and history, of ordinary people living through extraordinary times in the land Kim calls home.
Her latest novel, The Truth & Addy Loest, was published in February 2021, and is presently working on another. She is always working on another novel, and occasionally a short story, one of which, ‘Messerschmitt’, appears in the Hope Prize anthology, or a novella, one of which, The Rat Catcher, was shortlisted for Viva la Novella 2021.
When Kim is not writing, she is reading. In real life Kim is a book editor, better known on that side of the page as Kim Swivel, and regularly reviews for The Newtown Review of Books, too.
Raised in Sydney in a house that was humble except for its library and dinner-table debating style, Kim was always going to do wordy type things myself, and do them her own way. Home today is Central West New South Wales, where she is daily grateful to share a small slice of rolling green-and-gold Wiradjuri country with her muse de bloke, Deano, two cats and some chickens, and occasionally the kids when they come home to graze.
