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The Boy Who Loved Dolls
An abduction...a series of interviews...an investigation with unthinkable outcomes.
Contemporary Gothic at its most inventive: at times, a psychological drama; at times, a tragedy embodying the grotesque and the horrific.
The Boy Who Loved Dolls is set in 1987 Australia, mainly at the renowned (and reclusive) French film director, Jean-Jacques Baille's secluded country residence. Susan Vaughan, an eccentric young film critic and independent documentary-maker, is granted a once-in-a-lifetime chance to conduct a series of video-taped interviews staying with her long-term 'cultural icon'. Unknown to her she learns that he is also an obsessive collector and restorer of rare and, at times, unnerving dolls.
What starts out as an in-depth investigation into the themes, techniques and patterns within his ground-breaking work many featuring his Australian-born wife Anna and a probing dissection of his most recent semi-biographical film slowly turns into a cat-and-mouse game in which we find Baille is leading Susan towards his hidden past and the truth behind his wife's disappearance.
Contemporary Gothic at its most inventive: at times, a psychological drama; at times, a tragedy embodying the grotesque and the horrific.
The Boy Who Loved Dolls is set in 1987 Australia, mainly at the renowned (and reclusive) French film director, Jean-Jacques Baille's secluded country residence. Susan Vaughan, an eccentric young film critic and independent documentary-maker, is granted a once-in-a-lifetime chance to conduct a series of video-taped interviews staying with her long-term 'cultural icon'. Unknown to her she learns that he is also an obsessive collector and restorer of rare and, at times, unnerving dolls.
What starts out as an in-depth investigation into the themes, techniques and patterns within his ground-breaking work many featuring his Australian-born wife Anna and a probing dissection of his most recent semi-biographical film slowly turns into a cat-and-mouse game in which we find Baille is leading Susan towards his hidden past and the truth behind his wife's disappearance.
Hardcover
Expected publication June 1, 2026
About the author
John Alan Scott
19 books4 followersJohn Alan Scott (who has published under the names John A. Scott and John Scott) is an English-Australian poet, novelist and academic.
Scott was born in Littlehampton in Sussex, England, migrating to Australia during his childhood. Over several books of poetry his work developed in an 'experimental' direction unusual in Australian poetry, owing partly to his interest in translation. Indeed he has translated a volume, Elegies, of the contemporary French poet Emmanuel Hocquard. However since the 1990s he has concentrated on producing novels.
His work has won him the Victorian Premier's Award twice, in 1986 and again in 1994. The collection of novellas What I Have Written has been filmed from his own screenplay and he has been translated into French, German and Slovenian. He has taught in the Faculty of Creative Arts at Wollongong University but now writes full-time.
Scott was born in Littlehampton in Sussex, England, migrating to Australia during his childhood. Over several books of poetry his work developed in an 'experimental' direction unusual in Australian poetry, owing partly to his interest in translation. Indeed he has translated a volume, Elegies, of the contemporary French poet Emmanuel Hocquard. However since the 1990s he has concentrated on producing novels.
His work has won him the Victorian Premier's Award twice, in 1986 and again in 1994. The collection of novellas What I Have Written has been filmed from his own screenplay and he has been translated into French, German and Slovenian. He has taught in the Faculty of Creative Arts at Wollongong University but now writes full-time.
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