Published 1 May 2020
ISBN 978-1-920727-44-4
Format: Paperback
AU $32.99
Categories: Memoir
About the Author
Hayley Katzen migrated from South Africa to Australia in 1989. In Sydney, she graduated with an LLB and worked in public law and law reform before making a sea change to the North Coast of NSW to work as a law lecturer and researcher. Passionate about the power of stories, she quit law to study acting, performed in local plays and wrote and produced a play about asylum seekers. In 2005, Hayley moved to her girlfriend’s cattle farm in the Australian bush and it was here she practised the crafts of short story and essay writing and completed an MFA (Creative Writing). Her writing has won competitions, been read on ABC radio and Queerstories and been published in Australian, American and Asian journals and anthologies including Australian Book Review, Griffith Review, Southerly, Fourth Genre and Kenyon Review. Untethered is her debut memoir.
UNTETHERED
By HAYLEY KATZEN
When urban academic Hayley Katzen moves to a remote Australian cattle property to live with her farmer girlfriend, she hopes, at last, to find home.
But this is no happy-ever-after tree change. Lecture halls, law reform and the arts are replaced with castrating calves, shovelling manure, fire-fighting and anti-gas blockades. In a place that attracts people who live by their own rules, Hayley must confront her limitations and preconceptions to forge her own identity.
Set in the unpredictable beauty of the Australian landscape, and told with Hayley Katzen’s compelling candour and rigour, Untethered charts one migrant’s search for home. Part love story and part off-the-grid adventure, Untethered is a powerful reminder that home can be found in many forms – in love, in family and friends, in ideologies and political movements, in landscapes and communities, and ultimately, in ourselves.
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praise for untethered
‘Untethered is a magnificently clear-eyed and vivid exploration of belonging. Inquisitive, compassionate, wise and often purely entertaining, this memoir will speak to anyone who has ever wondered about how places and the people that inhabit them shape our lives and hearts.’
LEE KOFMAN
‘A writer untethered from everything but the fierce quest to illuminate that everyday, amazing thing –a human life..’
PETER BISHOP
‘Katzen has an excellent ear for dialogue and sensitive eyes for the small details of the bush. She is fearless is tackling difficult subjectives. In strong and revealing prose, she arrives at a hard-won sense of self’
AUSTRALIAN BOOK REVIEW
‘This is an inspiring book. It’s a direct and searing, honestly told foray into self. Above all, it is a memorably tender love story.’
CHRISTOPHER BANTICK, THE ADVERTISER
‘A heartfelt appreciation of the landscape, nature, community and the here and now.’
ANNE SUSSKIND, THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD
‘I found this book totally absorbing. It flows beautifully with subtle changes of mood, insightful descriptions and a hugely generous revealing of the author’s fears and insecurities. … It is not all sweetness and light but is certainly rich and dense—and one to savour. Highly recommended.’
JENNY DOWELL, RICHMOND-TWEED REGIONAL LIBRARY
‘I’m not very keen on reading memoirs, but Untethered is a good example of why I should never say ‘never’!’
LISA HILL, ANZ LIT LOVERS
‘An acutely observed account of rural life in northern NSW’
THE WEEKLY TIMES