'Why did Bluebeard kill his wives? Because that's what he did. It's a given. It's the plot. Until the lucky one, who is saved. The even more interesting question is: why did Mrs Bluebeard feel utterly unable to resist opening the door? Don't we all think, when it comes to these stories, that we'd have made it work? So much freedom, and one tiny forbidden thing. Not important, a token in fact. So easy to obey so small a prohibition. We think, if I had been Eve I wouldn't have picked the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, I wouldn't have given a piece to Adam. I and my progeny down the millennia would still be multiplying fruitfully in the Garden of Eden.'

Life in all its richness is reflected in this superb new collection from one of Australia's most acclaimed short story writers. Love and loss, sex and death, and the great pleasures of food, wine and reading all populate its pages.

Shooting the Fox is brimming with surprising characters - the virgin and the pornographer, the adulterer, the translator, the defecting diplomat - and the inconveniences of modernity. In the end, though, it is a collection of stories about happiness, its circuitous routes, its surprising outcomes, and the consequences when we fail in its pursuit.

On love and loss, sex and death, food and gardening ... a new collection by Australia's most assured short-story writer.

About the Author
Marion Halligan is an award-winning novelist, essayist and short-story writer with many prizes to her name, including The Age Book of the Year, the ACT Book of the Year, the Nita B. Kibble Award, the Steele Rudd Award, the Braille Book of the Year, the 3M Talking Book of the Year and the Geraldine Pascall prize for critical writing. She has also been shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize, the Dublin IMPAC Prize and the Miles Franklin Award. Her previous works include The Point, The Fog Garden, A Taste of Memory, The Apricot Colonel and Murder on the Apricot Coast. She lives in Canberra.

Awards
Short-listed for Queensland Literary Awards 2012 (Australia).



Book Information
ISBN 9781742376677
Author Marion Halligan
Format Paperback
Page Count 240
Imprint Allen & Unwin
Publisher Allen & Unwin
Weight(grams) 294g
Dimensions(mm) 208mm * 153mm * 18mm