The Quiet and the Loud

Title: The Quiet and the Loud

Author: Helena Fox

Publisher: Pan Australia

George's life is loud. On the water, though, with everything hushed above and below, she is steady, silent. Then her estranged dad says he needs to talk, and George's past begins to wake up, looping around her ankles, trying to drag her under.

Everything is a blaring, blazing mess. Could Calliope, the girl who has just cartwheeled into George's world and shot it through with brilliant, dazzling colour, be her calm among the chaos?

Photography by Sarah Walker

Judges’ report

18-year-old Georgia (George) spends most of her time navigating other people’s problems. Home life with her two mums and Gran is loud and chaotic. Things are no less complicated with her friends. Tess is suffering from post partum depression and Laz is consumed with environmental angst. George is used to managing other people’s anxiety, but when her estranged father makes contact, George is forced to unpack her own traumatic past. Fox’s prose is at once bold and delicate. Set against the backdrop of the deadly 2019-20 Australian fires, their use of metaphor delivers a beautifully crafted portrait of loss and and the redemptive capacities of love. Complex subject matter including family violence and mental illness is explored through an empathetic lens, and tempered by Fox’s poetic lyricism.