Liam Pieper - Sweetness and Light

Liam Pieper is the bestselling author of The Toymaker and The Feel-Good Hit of the Year, and one of Australia’s most exciting literary talents. His new novel, Sweetness and Light, is an exhilarating tale of fraudsters, gangsters, drug traffickers, gurus and, ultimately, the fine line between dubious moral relativism and true evil.

Liam will appear in-conversation with Peter Polites, author of the acclaimed The Pillars, a firm staff favourite and our Book of the Month on its release in August 2019. This will be a fantastic discussion between two of our brightest literary talents.  

RSVP now for this FREE event! Drinks and nibbles provided.  

About the Book

Connor is an Australian expat who had a brutal childhood at the hands of his father -- a man stripped of his job and dignity by the crash of Newcastle’s coal economy. Connor now spends his days running low-stakes tourist scams in a sleepy seaside town in India. 

When a scam goes horribly wrong, it leads to a chance meeting with Sasha, a New Yorker daughter of a Polish migrant, seeking spiritual growth following her divorce. The pair end up together on an isolated ashram -- where it becomes clear something in this utopian community is deeply wrong.

Sweetness and Light raises confronting but important questions about the ethics of ‘spiritual tourism’, not least how often ‘spiritual growth’ is facilitated by cheap labour. It’s an exhilarating tale of fraudsters, gangsters, drug traffickers, gurus and, ultimately, the fine line between dubious moral relativism and true evil. 

Liam has lived and travelled extensively in India, encountering expat communities where utopian idealism and colonial avenues of exploitation combine. 

About the Author

Liam Pieper is an author and journalist. His first book was a memoir, The Feel-Good Hit of the Year, shortlisted for the National Biography Award and the Ned Kelly Best True Crime award. His second was the Penguin Special Mistakes Were Made, a volume of humorous essays. 

He was co-recipient of the 2014 M Literary Award, winner of the 2015 Geoff Dean Short Story Prize and the inaugural creative resident of the UNESCO City of Literature of Prague. His first novel, The Toymaker, received the 2016 Christina Stead Fiction Award from the Fellowship of Australian Writers.  

About Peter Polites

Peter Polites earns minimum wage and writes novels, his second novel The Pillars is a satire of gay aspirations - and was our Book of the Month on its release in August 2019.