Free shipping on orders over $99
The Pillow Fight

The Pillow Fight

by Matthew Condon
Publication Date: 05/03/1999

Share This Book:

 
$21.95
No matter how dark it is out here, amongst the mangrove islands, I can still see my own blood sprayed across the white wall...I am fixed in my canvas chair, the same as every night, and I look across the white wall of the dining room in my house, a thousand kilometres away, a warm and thin constellation that has come from me immediately after the blow, and I am as numb now, at the thought of it, as I was when it happened.The Pillow Fight opens on the wedding night of a couple, Luke and Charlotte. As Charlotte sleeps in the bed, Luke sits watching the sunrise, feeling his eye blacken, wondering whether his life is ruined. Far from the blissful wedding night of his dreams and fantasies, reality has dealt him a different hand: he and Charlotte end up having a disagreement which results in her backhanding him across the face and blackening his eye. The anger and violence she unleashes terrify him and reveal another Charlotte, one he knows he will see again. At first Luke tries to help Charlotte, but she refuses to face her problem. The anger and violence continue without warning. He still loves her, pities her, but now he also fears her. Her attacks on him have diminished him as a person; he begins to think of himself as weak and unworthy, as deserving her punishment. He will do anything to make her happy, anything to avoid the inevitable and terrifying explosions of rage. He is living in a nightmare, one that is being played out in countless homes all over the world.The Pillow Fight is a bleak, brutal and uncompromising exploration of domestic violence and the destruction of a marriage. It is told from the point of view of a male victim, so should provoke controversy and debate, but its basic point is terrifyingly clear: domestic violence affects both men and women, both as victims and perpetrators...and the capacity for dark and rage-driven violence lives within us all.
ISBN:
9780091835507
9780091835507
Category:
Contemporary fiction
Publication Date:
05-03-1999
Publisher:
Random House Australia
Country of origin:
Australia
Dimensions (mm):
199x129x16mm
Weight:
0.24kg
Matthew Condon

Matthew Condon is a prize-winning Australian novelist and journalist. He is currently on staff with the Courier-Mail's Qweekend magazine. He began his journalism career with the Gold Coast Bulletin in 1984 and subsequently worked for leading newspapers and journals including the Sydney Morning Herald, the Sun-Herald and Melbourne's Sunday Age.

He is also the author of ten books of fiction, most recently The Trout Opera (Random House, 2007) and the non-fiction books Brisbane (New South Books, 2010), as well as Three Crooked Kings (UQP, 2013), Jacks and Jokers (UQP, 2014), and All Fall Down (2015), his best-selling trilogy about Queensland crime and corruption.

Click 'Notify Me' to get an email alert when this item becomes available

You can find this item in:

Show more Show less

Reviews

Be the first to review The Pillow Fight.