The Bearcat

Georgia Rose Phillips

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Picador
29 April 2025

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An intimate psychological portrait inspired by the true story of a notorious cult leader.

bearcat: a large, tree-dwelling mammal; 1920s slang for a fiery girl or woman.

1987. Family is everything to Anne. Our Messiah. And Anne demands everything from The Family; their loyalty, their money, even their children. In return, she promises existential comfort to lost and weary women. Because Anne knows how hard it is to build a family - and how easy it is to lose one.

1921. A child is born on a sticky summer evening. Our Anne. Her mother, Florence, is trapped at home with an indifferent husband and a relentlessly demanding newborn, struggling to reconcile motherhood and her shifting sense of self.

For both women, the past is for escaping, and love is impossible to trust. All they can hope is that their family will save them.

The Bearcat is a dark and nuanced exploration of longing, power and the inviolable grip of history.

Praise for The Bearcat

'A deft and lyrical exploration of the dark currents that run through family life. The Bearcat is a remarkable debut.' Stephanie Bishop

'As carefully controlled as it is mesmerising, Georgia Rose Phillips' debut upends expectations to give us a poignant double portrait of two women - one forgotten by history, the other destined for infamy - and the love and lack that made them.' Laura Elizabeth Woollett

'Georgia Rose Phillips is a talent'

Amanda Lohrey

By: Georgia Rose Phillips
Imprint: Picador
Country of Publication: Australia
Dimensions: Height: 232mm, Width: 154mm, Spine: 24mm
Weight: 399g
ISBN: 9781761266386
ISBN 10: 1761266381
Pages: 320
Publication Date: 29 April 2025
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Georgia Rose Phillips is an award-winning writer who publishes fiction, creative non-fiction, poetry, literary criticism and academic scholarship. Her creative non-fiction novella, Holocene, was runner-up in the 2018 Scribe Nonfiction Prize for Young Writers, and her short story 'New Balance' was a fiction winner in the 2021 Ultimo Prize. In 2022, her short story 'Beyond the Marram Grass' was a shortlisted finalist in the American Association of Australasian Literary Studies (AAALS) Prize. Georgia is a Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Adelaide and holds a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of New South Wales.