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Fritz Agency
Christian Dittus
Original language
English

A LONELY GIRL IS A DANGEROUS THING

Jessie Tu

Growing up is always hard, but especially when so many think you're a washed-up has-been at twenty-two.

Jena Lin plays the violin. She was once a child prodigy and now uses sex to fill the void left by fame. She's struggling a little. Her professional life comprises rehearsals, concerts, auditions and relentless practice; her personal life is spent managing the demands of her strict family and creative friends, and hooking up. And then she meets Mark - much older and worldly-wise - who consumes her. But at what cost to her dreams?

When Jena is awarded an internship with the New York Philharmonic, she thinks the life she has dreamed of is about to begin. But when Trump is elected, New York changes irrevocably and Jena along with it. Is the dream over? As Jena's life takes on echoes of Frances Ha, her favourite film, crucial truths are gradually revealed to her.

A Lonely Girl is a Dangerous Thing explores female desire and the consequences of wanting too much and never getting it. It is about the awkwardness and pain of being human in an increasingly dislocated world - and how, in spite of all this, we still try to become the person we want to be. This is a dazzling and original debut from a young writer with a fierce, intelligent and audacious voice.

Tu trained as a classical violinist for more than 15 years. Failing to succeed as a professional musician, she taught music at Kambala, St Ignatius College, MLC Burwood, Kings School, Newington College. She's taught at refugee camps in the Middle East, volunteered with AUSAID in The Solomon Islands, travelled to complete residencies in the U.S, and now works as a journalist at Women's Agenda. She's won several poetry and writing awards, and her first book of poetry was released in 2018. A Lonely Girl is a Dangerous Thing is her first novel.
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Published 2020-07-01 by Allen & Unwin

Comments

Longlisted for the Stella Prize Read more...

"A Lonely Girl Is a Dangerous Thing is a novel of race, class, discrimination within creative communities, youth, and familial expectation. But at its core, it is an exploration of self—a big part of which involves sexuality Tu writes sex very well, and Lonely Girl starts a conversation on sexual politics (especially with regards to interracial relationships) that I would love to see continued. The way Tu writes about classical music, and the way that Jena experiences life as an Asian– Australian woman artist in an industry that is largely controlled by white men, is brilliant. This is perhaps my most dog-eared book of 2020 gorgeously expressed lines, as well as stingingly abject and visceral ones go out and read it as soon as you can." — Ellen Cregan, Kill Your Darlings

"Jena wants a long-term relationship, but she doesn't. She discards men like autumn leaves. She uses them and they use her. This fits in with the unspoken currency of the orchestra. Brief liaisons Tu has clear insight into the technical side of music she also sheds light on driving ambition, the role of parents and the fine line between excellence, cruelty and punishment a raw and illuminating book. Highly recommended."

Winner of the "Best Literary Fiction of the Year" award, and shortlisted for the "Matt Richell Award for New Writer of the Year" award at the Australian Book Industry Awards ABIA Read more...

"An astonishing debut fascinating and intense [it] challenges systemic racism and misogyny, particularly in the progressive artistic world. It is confronting but it is also brilliant and original. Jessie Tu is an incredible new voice in Australian literature."

Film option sold to Thumper Productions

"I absolutely inhaled this book. Gutsy, bold and surprising, with a darkness that draws you in and keeps you hanging onto every word." — Bri Lee, author of Eggshell Skull "Jessie Tu's writing is fierce and bold; I read this novel with escalating excitement, galvanised by the emergence of a powerful new voice." — Christos Tsiolkas, author of Damascus "Searing, unflinching and unapologetic, Jessie Tu is a fearless talent." — Sophie Hardcastle, author of Below Deck

'Tu says she could “talk forever” about the ways sex, power and loneliness interact. (...) With Jena, she set out to write a character who “feels like she's playing by her own rules but in actual fact is playing by the rules set by men, historically”.' Read more...

"A Lonely Girl Is a Dangerous Thing is an engaging and ambitious debut filled with ideas that need to be heard Jena's relationship with music and performance in particular is extraordinarily well rendered, and the way this spills out and affects the people around her is believable and at times heartbreaking."

"excellent debut novel"

"Jena Lin loves sex Most of the time for Jena, sex is just sex. Though as Jessie Tu unravels in her debut novel, sex can mean many things: agency, power or being desired; punishment, a distraction, or a salve to being alone Jena sleeps with a variety of men who lay “claim” to her. She ultimately transcends them, claiming everything she does with men is an “ode” to herself. She is a character who subverts norms, whiling away hours watching violent porn in between YouTube performances of Beethoven and Shostakovich violin concertos. Selfish, motivated, duplicitous, brilliant: Jena is unapologetically complex an absorbing, occasionally confronting and often captivating first novel."

A LONELY GIRL IS A DANGEROUS THING sold in excess of 30.000 copies between June 2020 and January 2021.