The Love of a Bad Man - Paperback

by Laura Elizabeth Woollett (Author)

SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2017 VICTORIAN PREMIER'S LITERARY AWARD FOR FICTION

An electrifying short story collection about the wives, lovers, and mistresses of history's most notorious men.

A schoolgirl catches the eye of the future leader of Nazi Germany. An aspiring playwright writes to a convicted serial killer, seeking inspiration. A pair of childhood sweethearts reunite to commit rape and murder. A devoted Mormon wife follows her husband into the wilderness after he declares himself a prophet.

The twelve stories in The Love of a Bad Man imagine the lives of real women, all of whom were the lovers, wives, or mistresses of various "bad" men in history. Beautifully observed, fascinating, and at times horrifying, the stories interrogate power, the nature of obsession, and the lengths some women will go to for the men they love.

PRAISE FOR LAURA ELIZABETH WOOLLETT

"Like Helen Garner, Laura Woollett is impelled to explore the darkest corners of the human heart, the savage cognitive distortions of love; to understand and empathise with the monstrous, rather than to instinctively recoil or judge...Woollett's pitch-perfect command of narrative voice, period, and psychology creates 12 tales to fascinate and unnerve."
--The Age

"The Love of a Bad Man imagines the inner lives of historical figures who committed crimes all in the name of love...The stories treat death with a gothic inevitability and explore human darkness with a light touch."
--The Guardian

Front Jacket

A schoolgirl catches the eye of the future leader of Nazi Germany. An aspiring playwright writes to a convicted serial killer, seeking inspiration. A Mormon wife follows her husband into the wilderness. The Love of a Bad Man imagines the lives of these and other real women -- Blanche, the sister-in-law to Bonnie and Clyde, Charles Manson's California girls, and Marceline Jones (wife of Jim) -- who were the lovers, mistresses, or wives of various "bad" men in history.

Beautifully observed, fascinating, and at times horrifying, the stories interrogate power and the nature of obsession.

A mesmerizing exploration of the lengths some women will go to for the men they love.

Author Biography

Laura Elizabeth Woollett was born and raised in Perth, Western Australia. She moved to Melbourne after high school and, in 2012, completed an honours degree in creative writing at the University of Melbourne. Her first novel, The Wood of Suicides, was written while she was an undergraduate, and concerns a teacher-student relationship. It was published in the US in early 2014. The same year, she was awarded a Wheeler Centre/Readings Foundation Hot Desk Fellowship and the John Marsden/Hachette Prize for Fiction. In 2015, she was chosen as one of Melbourne Writers Festival's '30 Under 30'. She is currently at work on her second novel, Beautiful Revolutionary, about a young counterculture couple who become involved with Jim Jones' Peoples Temple in late '60s California.