The Erratics

2019 Stella Prize Winner

By: Vicki Laveau-Harvie

Narrated by: Vicki Laveau-Harvie

Length: 5 hrs and 57 mins

Publisher's summary

Dark, sharp, blackly funny and powerful, this is memoir, wielded as weapon, with the tightly compressed energy of an explosive device. 

"She has a poet's gift for language, a playwright's sense of drama and a stand-up comic's talent for timing. But perhaps most remarkable is the generosity of spirit with which she writes about family trauma. The book flows with kinetic energy, wit and wisdom. Upon reaching the last page, I found myself turning to the beginning and starting again, not wanting it to end." (New York Times)

This is a memoir about a dysfunctional family, about a mother and her daughters. But make no mistake. This is like no mother-daughter relationship you know. 

When Vicki Laveau-Harvie's elderly mother is hospitalised unexpectedly, Vicki and her sister travel to their parents' isolated ranch home in Alberta, Canada, to help their father. Estranged from their parents for many years, Vicki and her sister are horrified by what they discover on their arrival. For years, Vicki's mother has camouflaged her manic delusions and savage unpredictability, and over the decades she has managed to shut herself and her husband away from the outside world, systematically starving him and making him a virtual prisoner in his own home. Vicki and her sister have a lot to do, in very little time, to save their father. And at every step they have to contend with their mother, whose favourite phrase during their childhood was "I'll get you and you won't even know I'm doing it".

A ferocious, sharp, darkly funny, and wholly compelling memoir of families, the pain they can inflict and the legacy they leave, The Erratics has the tightly coiled, compressed energy of an explosive device—it will take your breath away. 

Winner of the 2019 Stella Prize, winner of the 2018 Finch Memoir Prize, shortlisted for the 2019 NSW Premier's Literary Awards.

"If someone had told me this manuscript was by a young Margaret Attwood or Alice Munro, I wouldn't have been surprised. The bleak beauty of the Canadian landscape set against this wry memoir of a daughter's journey with her sister through their parents' decline into ill-health and dementia is an extraordinary read." (Candida Baker)

"The Erratics grabbed me by the throat and never let go. Its sharp vinegary tone added a thrilling and bracing note to this portrayal of an extreme dysfunctional family. The writing has a visceral quality as well as a terrific sense of timing, irony and place—an unfamiliar and remote location far removed from Australia, but the author's tug back to Australia from this cold, inhospitable setting adds another dimension of contrast. There is a universality to the story, of ageing parents and conflicted children grappling with uncomfortable responsibilities. I loved it." (Caroline Baum, author, Only)

©2017 Vicki Laveau-Harvie (P)2019 HarperAudio

Gripping, well paced and intimate

I loved the audio version of this book, narrated by the author herself. She brings warmth, and sometimes lightness to an otherwise bleak memoir. Beautifully written.