Bohemian Negligence Book Launch

A MEMOIR.

Bertie Blackman grew up too fast. Bohemian Negligence tells that story with the breathtaking innocence of a child’s point of view: close and vivid and utterly in the moment. As memories refract and elide with the images, sounds and impressions of Bertie’s child’s world, we experience both her wonder and confusion with astonishing intimacy. A renowned musician and artist, Bertie is also a formidable and lyrical writer, and brings those gifts to recreate the world she grew up in. As the daughter of iconic artist Charles Blackman, that world celebrated freedom and creativity but also contained darkness and contradictions.

Bertie has captured the magic and vulnerability of childhood in words and images both joyful and haunting: ‘My childhood world was full of cracks. Full of light and full of dark. But it was full of love.’

This book will stay with you forever.

About Bertie

Bertie Blackman is an ARIA-winning musician and the daughter of iconic Australian artist Charles Blackman. She is a multidisciplinary storyteller. Her work as a writer, musician and artist is highly imaginative and weaves between the real and unreal, illuminating her unique universe and inviting us to explore worlds within worlds.

About Madeleine

Madeleine Gray is a writer and critic from Sydney. Her debut novel, Green Dot, is forthcoming with Allen & Unwin in 2023. She was a 2021 Finalist for the Walkley Pascall Prize for Arts Criticism, and has written for such publications as Overland, Meanjin, The Monthly, SRB, and the TLS. She has an MSt in English Literature from the University of Oxford and is a current doctoral candidate at the University of Manchester.