From Here On, Monsters

Book excerpt: WINNER OF THE NORMA K HEMMING AWARD 2020 In a city locked in a kind of perpetual twilight, antiquarian bookseller Cameron Raybould accepts a very strange commission - the valuation of a rare codex. Within its fragile pages Cameron makes a curious discovery. Although seemingly ancient, the codex tells of a modern mystery: an academic missing for eleven years. Stranger still, as finding the truth becomes ever more of an obsession, Cameron begins to notice frightening lapses in memory. As if, all around, words, images, even people are beginning to fade from sight. As if unravelling the riddle of this book may be unravelling the nature of reality itself. And something frightening and unknown is taking its place... A noirish mystery, timely work of unbridled imagination from a startling new voice, Elizabeth Bryer. PRAISE FOR FROM HERE ON, MONSTERS 'A novel that places the reader into the abyss of storytelling. this is more than a book of secrets, codes, geniuses, history and language. It is more than you could imagine.' Tara June Winch, author of The Yield 'Traverses the chasm between truth and history, and challenges our faith in the liberatory potential of art. It's a modern Australian novel about modern Australia that, refreshingly, doesn't read at all like a modern Australian novel.' Shaun Prescott 'Elizabeth Bryer writes with compassion and generosity.' Tony Birch, author of Blood 'This strange and wonderful novel delights with its language games, but it also understands that such shenanigans are never just games. Words have an impact on how we understand reality. Words can damage humans of flesh and blood. In From Here On, Monsters, Bryer shows us how language is integral to our humanity.' Saturday Paper 'Wonderfully strange and often enigmatic' Fiona Wright, author of The World Was Whole