Author(s): Rachel Ward

Australian Fiction

She sat down in front of a movie-star mirror framed with silver light bulbs and felt like her life had taken a sudden lurch. She was more like something just ventured from the depths of a winter burrow than she was a movie star, but now she'd taken those wobbly first steps there was no going back. Somewhere deep in her primeval DNA, hounds were baying. Chloe could feel her pulse thumping in her throat. It made her stiff and speechless.

Rachel Ward has lived many lives- from the depths of the English countryside, to the bright lights of 1980s Hollywood, to the sunny shores of her adopted Australian home. Now this acclaimed director, screenwriter and actress has turned her hand to writing, pushing the boundary between fiction and non-fiction as she examines the privileges and heartbreaks of her life though a web of interconnecting short stories. Alternately tender, funny, nostalgic and surprising, the stories in Dirty Linen pulse with the push and pull of concealment and revelation.