Passengers transferred between bus and streetcar at the Jane Loop, a locus of personal significance for 16-year-old Neil in Graham Jackson's debut novel. To the west, the bus through sleepy suburbs, an escape from the city's perceived seaminess. To the east, the streetcar, the bright lights and hubbub of downtown. Until the construction of Toronto's second subway line in the late 1960s, the western terminus of the Bloor streetcar at Jane Street marked a psychological border. As Lily considers her childhood friend from the distance of five decades, this remarkably sure-footed debut novel becomes a study of the depths and loss of female friendship. Lily is an observant child, a stranger fascinated by the Trenthams' artistic milieu, but The Strays, which won the Stella Prize when originally published in Australia, is more than a period piece. But when a rift develops in the volatile community of painters, Lily and Eva are on either side of a widening chasm. The Trenthams' laissez-faire child-rearing allows Lily to slip easily into the family. Indeed, when Eva takes her home, Lily is charmed by the bohemian vivacity of the entire Trentham household: avant-garde painter Evan, heiress Helena, their other two daughters and their growing community of 'strays' – painters taking harbour from 1930s Australia's stifling cultural conservatism. This lyrical and devastating new novel from the Stella-Prize winning author of The Strays offers us startling and profound visions of the world and our place in it.On her first day at a new school, her working-class parents having recently moved due to the Depression, eight-year-old Lily is besotted by classmate Eva. We read with increasing horror and denial as we approach the cataclysmic conclusion of Will’s American odyssey, dreading what is galloping towards us, but utterly unable to look away.

Wild Abandon is a headlong tumble through the falling world of end-days capitalism, a haunting, hyperreal snapshot of our own strange times.

These two men in crisis form an unlikely friendship, but Will has no idea just how close to the edge Wayne truly is. By fate or random chance, Will’s journey takes him deep into the American heartland where he meets Wayne Gage, a fast-living, troubled Vietnam veteran, would-be spirit guide and collector of exotic animals.

Landing in the excessive, uncanny-familiar glamour and plenitude of New York City, Will makes a vow to say yes to everything that comes his way. In the fall of 2011, a heartbroken young man flees Australia for the USA.

The strays bitto