AUSTRALIA-WIDE LOW FLAT RATE $9.90
Susanna Crossman grew up in an international utopian community in England during the 1970s and 80s. Now based in France, she works internationally as a writer, clinical arts therapist, and lecturer. Her recent writing has featured in Aeon, the Paris Review and Berfois. She is a published novelist in French, and regularly collaborates with artists. She lives with her partner and three daughters.
Beautiful, Bold, Tender. I loved this gorgeous memoir about making home * Pragya Agarwal, author of Hysterical * A bold and intimate grappling with the hidden history at the heart of a childhood that was set up as a collectivist social experiment. A true piece of work and one that is historically significant * Ewan Morrison, author of How To Survive Everything * A wondrous book. Brave and beautifully written. An extraordinary anxiety-inducing dive into life in a late-70s/80s utopia, told through a child's eyes. Will live with me a long time. * Allan Jenkins, author of Plot 29 * Home is Where We Start joins an important conversation about the damage done to children by 1970s parents who gave up conventional family life for utopian ideals, but ended up chasing an ephemeral dream. Moving between the personal and theory, it is an important analysis of what home means to us all. Writing through image and objects, through metaphor and symbolism, Susanna takes us right into the heart of her unconventional childhood, full of joy and neglect, of wonder and pain. She writes with such curiosity and heart-breaking honesty of what it is to find her own truth. I was enthralled by this book, and how Susanna in the end uses her own experiences of neglect as a superpower, to create a loving home and to help those in need of care. * Lily Dunn, author of Sins of My Father * Crossman is strikingly good on how children pay the price for adult utopian fantasies, as props and as scapegoats * Dr Noreen Masud, author of A Flat Place * A brilliant memoir - a touching, propulsive and shocking portrayal of a childhood in a utopian community, framed by a fascinating exploration of what it means to create a space called home * Sam Mills, author of THE FRAGMENTS OF MY FATHER * Authentic, irreverent and generous, Crossman breathes fresh life into a childhood spent living in an experimental community in the English countryside. In vivid, staccato prose, she plunges from screamingly funny episodes into fear and despair, conjuring dizzying freedoms, strange new ‘rules’, the constant lack of privacy and the bright hopes that magnetise everyone around her. It’s a miracle she emerged intact to gift us this story, shot through with understanding and forgiveness
