My Hundred Lovers

A woman on the eve of her fiftieth birthday reflects on her life in the extraordinary, beautiful and shocking new novel from one of Australia's premier novelists.

'Confronting the inevitable desiccation of her ageing body, a woman reflects on her life as an erotic adventurer, and through these vivid stories of the flesh, a mind and a soul emerge in full. Susan Johnson is a writer in her prime, and her most enduring love affair is with language itself. ' Geraldine Brooks

That afternoon in the small bedroom the light was blue. The curtains were cream and blew softly in the wind. There was a cry, far off, almost out of earshot. There was a man in my bed and I did not know how he got there.

A woman, on the eve of her fiftieth birthday, reflects on one hundred moments from a lifetime's sensual adventures. After the love, hatred and despair are done with, the great and trivial acts of her bodily life reveal an imperfect, yet whole self. By turns humorous, sharp, haunting and wise, this is an original and exhilarating novel from one of Australia's premier writers.

Lyrical and exquisite, My Hundred Lovers captures the sheer wonder of life, desire and love.

About the Author

Susan Johnson was shortlisted for the 1991 Victorian Premier's Literary Award for her novel Flying Lessons, shortlisted for the 1994 National Book Council's Banjo Award for the novel A Big Life and shortlisted for the National Biography Award 2000 for her memoir A Better Woman. Her other books include Hungry Ghosts, Messages from Chaos, Women/Love/Sex (editor and contributor) and Life in Seven Mistakes.

The Broken Book was shortlisted for the 2005 Nita B Kibble Award; the Best Fiction Book section of the Queensland Premier's Literary Award; the Westfield/Waverley Library Literary Award, and the Australian Literary Society Gold Medal Award for an Outstanding Australian Literary Work.

Review:

I have read My Hundred Lovers. I recommend it to anyone who feels a little pale and dusty. There is life in these pages, enough, in fact, to take deep, invigorating draughts without exhausting the supply. I felt I was being invited into secret places, but not foreign places. Susan examines emotions, sensations and pleasures many of us will recognise. She teases out meaning from fleeting and now forgotten delights. The book moves gracefully and quickly, never stopping long in any one place, building a gorgeous picture of life with its loves and losses, friendships, self-delusions, introspections and joys. I read it in a couple of sittings, reading greedily. And when I was finished I lay it down and wandered off feeling as though my own past had been opened up and aired. John Purcell, The Booktopia Book Guru