The Museum of Words : a memoir of language, writing, and mortality

`The paradox of writing about life while trying to live it, a perspective that perhaps comes only from looking back from the end.' -- Katy Hershberger * Shelf Awareness * `The Museum of Words is a very powerful, private essay on the end of being, invested with an unshakeable sense of presence, of fellow-humanity. Also with true verbal beauty and lyrical evocativeness. With her last book Blain proves that one can indeed, and most significantly, "go gently into that good night".' -- Mika Provata-Carlone * Bookanista * `Blain seamlessly reveals joys and complications of her family, and manages to provide some keen insights into the art and graft of telling stories ... Museum is calm and tender and wise and brisk.' * The Listener * `A powerful meditation on the power of language and writing ... wise, tender, and heart-rending.' -- Nicole Abadee * AFR * `An incredible gift for those who loved Blain, those who valued her writing, and those who are still to discover this great writer ... We are so lucky to be able to read it.' -- Stella Charls * Readings * `A fine short memoir that looks both inward and outward to tell a patchwork story of four women and their shifting relationships with one another and with words, their medium for living ... She does not try to make sense of what was happening and does not rail against fate's cruelty. She does not argue for voluntary euthanasia and even notes that her mother, once an advocate, went quiet on the subject after she became ill. Blain simply continues to write, her voice faltering only occasionally, until her final sentence.' -- Susan Wyndham * Weekend Australian * `[Museum of Words] is not a memoir of dying, although it is about illness and treatment, and the impossibility of saying goodbye. It moves between its subjects, using the writer's illness reflexively, leading into description of the things most important to her ... [A] fine book that looks chaos directly in the face and attempts to record it.' -- Tegan Bennett Daylight * Sydney Morning Herald * `[A] passionate, piercingly observed farewell to what Blain loved most in life ... its fragile strength, depth of insight and sheer hard-won existence make it a book to be read, treasured and shared as the parting gift it is.' FOUR STARS -- Jo Case * Books+Publishing *
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Georgia Blain published novels for adults and young adults, essays, short stories, and a memoir. Her first novel was the bestselling Closed for Winter, which was made into a feature film. Her books have been shortlisted for numerous awards including the NSW, Victorian, and SA Premiers' Literary Awards, the ALS Gold Medal, the Stella Prize, and the Nita B. Kibble Award for her memoir Births Deaths Marriages. Georgia's works include The Secret Lives of Men, Too Close to Home, and the YA novel Darkwater. In 2016, Georgia published Between a Wolf and a Dog and the YA novel Special (Penguin Random House Australia). Between a Wolf and a Dog was shortlisted for the 2017 Stella Prize, and was awarded the 2017 Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Fiction and the 2016 Queensland Literary Award for Fiction. Georgia passed away in December 2016.
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