Publisher signs Avondale lecturer for stylistic literary fiction
An Avondale lecturer has signed a contract to publish a novel that will experiment with literary style while celebrating the writing of the beat generation.
Lynnette Lounsbury adopted the beatniks’ attitude of detachment and relaxation as she experimented with language and character in We Ate the Road Like Vultures. The writing is much looser than in her debut novel, a young adult fantasy called Afterworld published by Allen & Unwin this past year. “I let the writing come first and fast, breaking open the traditional conventions a little.”
The protagonist is an Australian girl who suspects American novelist and poet Jack Kerouac, a pioneer of the beat generation, might still be alive and living in Mexico. The story, which began as a series of blog posts, centres on her journey to find him. “If you believe something is real, it is to you,” says Lounsbury, a lecturer in communication, film and history at Avondale College of Higher Education. She wrote the novel based on the idea that Kerouac did not die young but lived out his last days “in a grand old joke” on everyone.
Kerouac has influenced Lounsbury’s life and her style of writing. His style—Kerouac is recognised for his method of spontaneous prose—“woke me up as a young reader. I felt deeply inspired by his openness and his willingness to embrace everything as a valuable experience.”
The novel is Lounsbury’s first for an adult audience. Melbourne based Inkerman & Blunt will publish it next year.
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