The Feel-Good Hit of the Year: A Memoir - Liam Pieper

Judges' Comments

This memoir provides us with a confronting example of how important it can be, in a civil and caring society, to give a young person a second (or even third) chance.

Pieper’s story is about growing up in a house where drugs seemed normal, and the children were cared for but relatively free from restraint. Smart, but not so clever, teenage Pieper becomes a petty criminal, and narrowly escapes what would have been a life-changing prison sentence. Even the death of his brother, who overdoses on heroin, doesn’t quite sound the wake-up call, but it does crack open the veneer.

While the story is dramatic, Pieper never succumbs to exploiting that drama, so his account has a quiet intensity. There is also the quirky but controlled self-deprecating humour, which gives the book a consistent tone. Unsentimental and never pathetic, this story offers a case study in the responsibility of communities and families to provide safety nets for children. It is also a kind of coming-of-age book of a writer, who emerges at the end of his narration with an optimistic and encouraging conviction about his own path forward.

About the Author

Liam Pieper lives in Melbourne. He studied creative writing and then journalism and now works as a freelance writer. Before that he worked as a cook, a music critic, a non-union itinerant labourer and a mediocre criminal. His work has appeared in The Age, the Saturday Paper, the Good Weekend, Meanjin, The Best of the Lifted Brow and The Sleepers Almanac, and he is the co-recipient of the 2014 M Literary Residency.