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My Beautiful Enemy
Published 24 April 2013
ISBN 9781922079893
Format Trade Paperback
Extent 256pp
AU Price $29.99
NZ Price $37.00

My Beautiful Enemy

Formats & editions
Tr. Paperback
24 Apr 2013
EBook
24 Apr 2013
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I was blinded by his beauty. In the one or two photographs I've kept of him I can still see it. He stares out of them almost miserably, as if his loveliness is an affliction. Not that I saw it that way, at least not in the beginning. In the beginning I thought it was a kind of miracle.
Arthur Wheeler is haunted by his infatuation with a Japanese youth he encountered in the enemy alien camp where he worked as a guard during WW2. Abandoning his wife and baby son, Arthur sets out on a doomed mission to rescue his lover from forced deportation back to Japan, a country in ruins.
Thus begins the secret history of a soldier at war with his own sexuality and dangerously at odds with the racism that underpins the crumbling British Empire.
Four decades later Arthur is still obsessed with the traumatic events of his youth. He proposes a last reunion with his lost lover, in the hope of laying his ghosts to rest, but this mission too seems doomed to failure.
Like 'Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence' and Snow Falling On Cedars, My Beautiful Enemy explores questions of desire and redemption against the background of a savage racial war. In this context, Arthur's private battles against his own nature, and against the conventions of his time, can only end in heartache.
Published 24 April 2013
ISBN 9781922079893
Format Trade Paperback
Extent 256pp
AU Price $29.99
NZ Price $37.00

About the author

Cory Taylor

Cory Taylor was born in Queensland in 1955. She was an award-winning novelist and screenwriter who also published short fiction and children’s books. Her first novel, Me and Mr Booker, won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize (Pacific Region) in 2012 and her second novel, My Beautiful Enemy, was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award in 2014. She died on 5 July 2016, a couple of months after Dying: A Memoir was published.
portrait photo of Cory Taylor

Also by Cory Taylor

Me and Mr Booker: Text Classics
Dying
See all

Praise for My Beautiful Enemy

'Hands down, Me and Mr Booker is one of the best coming-of-age novels I've ever read. In it, Cory Taylor has given us an irresistable, whip-smart heroine who thinks and speaks like the 16-year-old you wish you'd been. It's a compulsive read too: I devoured this novel in two sittings, only stopping because I needed to pace myself. Me and Mr Booker is sexy, smart and brutally funny, and reminds us that while teenagers grow up fast, it's only because they're surrounded by adults who behave like children.' Benjamin Law

PRH, PRH

'Cory Taylor's Me and Mr Booker has the heart of Lolita and the soul of Catcher In The Rye, this is one of the most assured debut novels I have ever read. These characters feel so real that they become almost family. Refreshing, surprising, sexy and ultimately very moving.' Krissy Kneen

PRH, PRH

'Taylor's take on the oft-explored rite of passage from sweet, open-eyed childhood into the dark sexually charged realms of adolescent turmoil is distinctive, disturbing and refreshed by the limitless aptitude of middle-aged men for acting like spoilt teenagers. A vibrant, questioning and unpredictable read.' West Australian, on Me and Mr Booker

PRH, PRH

'Me and Mr Booker is sharply observed and blackly comic, but it is also a tender depiction of love, sex, power and one girl's heartbreaking step into adulthood.' Australian Bookseller + Publisher

PRH, PRH

'Controlled and elegant.' David Vann, on Me and Mr Booker

PRH, PRH

'Vividly cinematic...Taylor's vivid evocation of lowered expectations and empty lives is understated and memorable.' Canberra Times, on Me and Mr Booker

PRH, PRH

'Cory Taylor's characters are magnificently created.' Weekend Australian, on Me and Mr Booker

PRH, PRH

'Me and Mr Booker is pitched as a coming-of-age novel, but this implies a simpler narrative than Taylor has achieved. Martha is a memorable creation and an assured debut.' Sydney Morning Herald

PRH, PRH

'Restrained, surprisingly moving and compulsively readable, Cory Taylor's debut novel is nuanced and touching portrait of a doomed relationship.' Sun Herald, on Me and Mr Booker

PRH, PRH