- Helen FitzGerald
Helen FitzGerald (born 1966,
Melbourne ,Australia ) is a novelist and screenwriter. She is best known for her debut novel "Dead Lovely", first published byAllen & Unwin in September 2007.Background
FitzGerald, the twelfth of thirteen children, was brought up in the country town of
Kilmore, Victoria , and moved to the UK in 1991. She started writing while working as a criminal justice social worker, latterly with serious sex offenders inGlasgow 'sBarlinnie Prison .Writing
FitzGerald began as a screenwriter, producing a series of educational children's dramas for
BBC Scotland . She subsequently sold a number of screenplays, but none was ultimately produced and – frustrated by the film and television industry – she turned to novel-writing.Her first book, "Dead Lovely", was completed in 2006. It was picked up by publishers Ambo/Anthos(
Netherlands ) and subsequently byAllen & Unwin (Australia/New Zealand ),Faber & Faber (UK), Calmann-Levy (France ) and Piemme (Italy ).A follow-up novel to "Dead Lovely", titled "My Last Confession", is due for publication in 2009.
FitzGerald's third and fourth novels – "The Devil's Staircase" and "Bloody Women" – are due for publication in October 2008 and October 2009 respectively.
Critical reaction
Some commentators noted that FitzGerald's first book, while generally described as a crime novel, did not follow the traditional rules of the genre. They argued that it belonged to a different, more psychologically complex tradition, characterised by the dark humour and flawed anti-heroines of writers such as
Tama Janowitz andFay Weldon . Novelist Mark Abernethy wrote of FitzGerald: "She has managed to do what Fay Weldon did in "The Life and Loves of a She-Devil ", which is to find the joke in what appals us [ [http://www.authorsites.co.uk/authorpage.php?page=books&author_id=70&book_id=208# Authorsites.co.uk : Dead Lovely ] ] ."Australian critic Sally Murphy described the novel as compelling but hard to classify, with "elements of chick-lit mixed with ghastly scenes of murder and retribution" [ [http://www.aussiereviews.com/article2463.html Book Review: Dead Lovely, by Helen Fitzgerald ] ] , while Adelaide writer Cath Kenneally highlighted FitzGerald's technique of underpinning audacious and potentially shocking material - "
working blue " - with "sociological acumen" [ [http://rebeccablackburn.com.au/Adelade%20Review.html The Adelaide Review : Archives ] ] .Links
Author Website http://www.helenfitzgerald.net/
Author Blog http://www.helenfitzgerald.co.uk/
References
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
