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Six Bedrooms
Six Bedrooms is about growing up; about discovering sex; and about coming of age. Full of glorious angst, embarrassment and small achievements.
Hot afternoons on school ovals, the terrifying promise of losing your virginity, sneaking booze from your mother's pantry, the painful sophistication and squalor of your first share house, cancer, losing a parent.
Tegan Bennett Daylight's powerful collection captures the dangerous, tilting terrain of becoming adult. Over these ten stories, we find acute portrayals of loss and risk, of sexual longing and wreckage, blunders and betrayals. Threaded through the collection is the experience of troubled, destructive Tasha, whose life unravels in unexpected ways, and who we come to love for her defiance, her wit and her vulnerability.
Stunningly written, and shot through with humour and menace, Six Bedrooms is a mesmerising collection of moments from adolescence through adulthood, a mix of all the potent ingredients that make up a life.
Hot afternoons on school ovals, the terrifying promise of losing your virginity, sneaking booze from your mother's pantry, the painful sophistication and squalor of your first share house, cancer, losing a parent.
Tegan Bennett Daylight's powerful collection captures the dangerous, tilting terrain of becoming adult. Over these ten stories, we find acute portrayals of loss and risk, of sexual longing and wreckage, blunders and betrayals. Threaded through the collection is the experience of troubled, destructive Tasha, whose life unravels in unexpected ways, and who we come to love for her defiance, her wit and her vulnerability.
Stunningly written, and shot through with humour and menace, Six Bedrooms is a mesmerising collection of moments from adolescence through adulthood, a mix of all the potent ingredients that make up a life.
215 pages, Paperback
First published July 1, 2015
13 people are currently reading
418 people want to read
About the author
Tegan Bennett Daylight
24 books39 followersTegan Bennett Daylight is a fiction writer, teacher and critic. She is the author of three novels and a collection of short stories, Six Bedrooms, which was shortlisted for the 2016 Stella Award, the ALS Gold Medal and the Steele Rudd Award. She lives in the Blue Mountains with her husband and two children.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 59 reviews
August 16, 2015
Short story collections are something of a livre de jour, and this is a well-deserved player in this arena, unlike this clunky metaphor I’ve dragged from the recesses of my Sunday afternoon brain. I am 100% down with this. Short story writing amazes and confounds me. The ability to get across the entirety of a character and the way they factor in the world is a true art form.
Six bedrooms is about growing up. It’s the passage from childhood to teenagehood, and these ten works tell that story succinctly. I related to so many of these characters: the dodgy share house, the best friend who deserved better, the electrifying sexual awakening. This is a beautiful exploration of femininity, sexual identity, friendship, family, love and disquiet.
These stories are so essay-like in quality that for several dozen pages I believed I was reading non-fiction. They have that lovely reflective quality — an adult looking back on the moments that shaped what came later. I found my adult self looking back on the mess of my own teenage years with a new kind of fondness; these are not unique experiences, I’m not the only one who veered off these paths and felt I would spend forever trying to clamber back on.
The language use is practically flawless. This is neat, contained prose that offers no more than is necessary, leaving space to be filled by the sympathetic experience of the reader. The character of Tasha popped up more than once, becoming less and less likeable but highly relatable (a fact that played nicely into my residual teenage insecurities). Each unique character is expertly rendered. The Sydney setting is focused and fully present. There’s no doubt this is skilful writing.
Having said that, for me, the best kind of short story collection has a clear commonality from one tale to the next. I like to be able to pluck myself out of the one I’m in and plonk myself into the next one and know where I am in the grand scheme of the collection, but also know I’m in a different story. I’m conservative like that. Wary of change. There were times I came unstuck in this reading, flicking between narrators often new but sometimes not new. There’s little chronology — or if there is, it’s unclear — and this took something away from the process of “growing up”, from start to finish. All of those terrifying steps, one after another. The sense of onslaught, death through puberty. Waiting for the moment everything clicks and makes sense again.
Thanks to Random House for providing me with a copy of this book for review.
Six bedrooms is about growing up. It’s the passage from childhood to teenagehood, and these ten works tell that story succinctly. I related to so many of these characters: the dodgy share house, the best friend who deserved better, the electrifying sexual awakening. This is a beautiful exploration of femininity, sexual identity, friendship, family, love and disquiet.
These stories are so essay-like in quality that for several dozen pages I believed I was reading non-fiction. They have that lovely reflective quality — an adult looking back on the moments that shaped what came later. I found my adult self looking back on the mess of my own teenage years with a new kind of fondness; these are not unique experiences, I’m not the only one who veered off these paths and felt I would spend forever trying to clamber back on.
The language use is practically flawless. This is neat, contained prose that offers no more than is necessary, leaving space to be filled by the sympathetic experience of the reader. The character of Tasha popped up more than once, becoming less and less likeable but highly relatable (a fact that played nicely into my residual teenage insecurities). Each unique character is expertly rendered. The Sydney setting is focused and fully present. There’s no doubt this is skilful writing.
Having said that, for me, the best kind of short story collection has a clear commonality from one tale to the next. I like to be able to pluck myself out of the one I’m in and plonk myself into the next one and know where I am in the grand scheme of the collection, but also know I’m in a different story. I’m conservative like that. Wary of change. There were times I came unstuck in this reading, flicking between narrators often new but sometimes not new. There’s little chronology — or if there is, it’s unclear — and this took something away from the process of “growing up”, from start to finish. All of those terrifying steps, one after another. The sense of onslaught, death through puberty. Waiting for the moment everything clicks and makes sense again.
Thanks to Random House for providing me with a copy of this book for review.
May 10, 2016
This was an enjoyable collection of stories, each of them about some aspect of being a teenager or growing up. Think: lots of anxiety around sex, acne, where to next get booze, how to negotiate relationships with pals, parents, etc. The awkwardness of first dates, first kisses, first crushes. There was a lot in here I identified with!
The writing style was probably my favourite element of the book. Every story felt very 'polished', at the level of sentence. The collection was nice to read; it flowed well; there was a compelling precision to the descriptions, particularly of the feelings of shame, embarrassment and inadequacy that teens seem to feel in most situations.
There were a couple of stand out stories: "They fuck you up' was a particularly powerful account of how kids are affected by abusive parents. I also really liked "Trouble", about a girl who moves to London and feels isolated, even though she's living with her sister, because Londoners are so averse to platonic touching (like hugging, laying an arm on a shoulder, etc).
The other stories were all nice to read in the sense I could identify with elements of each of them, but to be honest they all blur together a bit in my memory and occasionally they felt a little repetitive (there were lots of girls who felt ugly and unlovable, which is great because a lot of girls do feel like that - I definitely did at that age - but by the end it felt slightly same-ish). They were still great to read, though.
A few of the stories were 'linked' - i.e. had same protagonist. I really liked the complex character of Tasha but I can't help feeling that including such linked stories may have worked better if the whole collection focused on her, or else none at all. By the final installment about Tasha I was beginning to really care for her and be interested in her, and I felt a bit let down, or short changed, or something, that there weren't more stories about her. At the same time, the stories could have been about other people, characters with different names, and it wouldn't have changed their effectiveness or purpose. I guess I'm saying it wasn't clear to me why there needed to be linked stories. I don't know. Sometimes it feels like publishers like linking a few stories in a collection because they think readers are more likely to buy it, which, as I reader, I'm not sure is true.
That said, this collection is lovely, and really took me back to late high school and early uni.
from juliatulloh.com
The writing style was probably my favourite element of the book. Every story felt very 'polished', at the level of sentence. The collection was nice to read; it flowed well; there was a compelling precision to the descriptions, particularly of the feelings of shame, embarrassment and inadequacy that teens seem to feel in most situations.
There were a couple of stand out stories: "They fuck you up' was a particularly powerful account of how kids are affected by abusive parents. I also really liked "Trouble", about a girl who moves to London and feels isolated, even though she's living with her sister, because Londoners are so averse to platonic touching (like hugging, laying an arm on a shoulder, etc).
The other stories were all nice to read in the sense I could identify with elements of each of them, but to be honest they all blur together a bit in my memory and occasionally they felt a little repetitive (there were lots of girls who felt ugly and unlovable, which is great because a lot of girls do feel like that - I definitely did at that age - but by the end it felt slightly same-ish). They were still great to read, though.
A few of the stories were 'linked' - i.e. had same protagonist. I really liked the complex character of Tasha but I can't help feeling that including such linked stories may have worked better if the whole collection focused on her, or else none at all. By the final installment about Tasha I was beginning to really care for her and be interested in her, and I felt a bit let down, or short changed, or something, that there weren't more stories about her. At the same time, the stories could have been about other people, characters with different names, and it wouldn't have changed their effectiveness or purpose. I guess I'm saying it wasn't clear to me why there needed to be linked stories. I don't know. Sometimes it feels like publishers like linking a few stories in a collection because they think readers are more likely to buy it, which, as I reader, I'm not sure is true.
That said, this collection is lovely, and really took me back to late high school and early uni.
from juliatulloh.com
September 7, 2017
I really enjoyed this collection of short stories about growing up from adolescence to adulthood, and all of the wonder and heartbreak that goes with that. I think all the stories are really good, but I did have a soft spot for J'aime Rose, and Trouble. All the characters felt real & complex, and even though not all of them were exactly likeable, they were definitely relatable. I also really appreciated the way that all the stories were set across a number of decades, but still had a timeless quality about them. This is probably because they are focussed on the internal thoughts and struggles of the characters, which were portrayed really beautifully. I liked this a lot more that I thought I would from reading the blurb, and I'm glad I read it!
August 5, 2015
This is a lovely collection of stories, almost all focussing on young people who are figuring themselves out. Bennett-Daylight captures the precise feeling of so many moments of awkwardness, unease and realisation and writes like a dream throughout. In many ways this is reminiscent of Hot Little Hands, both in its approach (a mix of interlinked and standalone stories) and the type of moments, characters and stories that the authors are interested in. This is a more polished book – and one that has me enthused about exploring the author’s back catalogue.
March 15, 2016
Well. Tegan Bennett Daylight’s Six Bedrooms is very, very good. If all short story collections were this satisfying, I might very well be a convert to the world of short stories.
The collection focuses on growing up. These stories are not aiming to deliver sock-em-in-the-guts plot twists. Rather, they’re ruminations on the angst, joys and horrors of growing up and the success of each is tied to the fact that Daylight writes about things that are so exquisitely familiar that you feel she may have had access to your teenage diary – planning a future with a boy because you noticed his legs in assembly; the awkward ‘family-friend-as-school-formal-date’; the transient personalities in a share-house; the weird dynamic when you meet up with an ex, years later.
“I arrive and what I suspected is instantly clear – that John is one of the least popular boys at his school. He leads me to a table of boys with glasses, skinny necks, untended acne.”
When you’re a teenager, you feel as if you are the first person in the world to feel so heartbroken, so in-love, so scared, so EVERYTHING. Daylight captures that, reminds the reader that those experiences are in fact commonplace and unifying, but doesn’t belittle them. Because falling in love with a boy in assembly because of his legs is very, very intense when it happens.
“And then we would walk along the back streets, leaves whispering, me talking too fast, him not talking at all, our shoulders occasionally, unhappily bumping. I was too embarrassed about my own lack of experience to take on his as well.”
Although Daylight writes about ordinary events, there’s nothing ordinary in her sentences – her words are beautiful, succinct but poignant.
“I could see the way her hair looked when it was wet – dark underneath the blonde. And the blonde slightly green, like the hair of all the kids who had pools.”
“There were books everywhere, and three little dogs who had exploded like party favours when the front door was opened.”
It’s impossible to review a short story collection without mentioning favourites – the first and last stories, Like a Virgin and J’áime Rose respectively. Her depictions of adolescence in both stories was pitch-perfect.
Also notable was the only story told from a male perspective, They Fuck You Up – this is Daylight with a menacing edge and her restraint in telling a story about domestic violence is remarkable. The story focuses on Darcy, a teen who is both abused and an emerging abuser himself. It’s a snapshot of a very critical moment in what is often cyclical behaviour – you can see how Darcy’s future will play out but Daylight reigns in the action and most of what happens is implied – the subtlety is what makes it very frightening.
“It had been easy to bring her round- he’d just had to tell her that was it, they were breaking up.”
4/5 Brilliant.
I received my copy of Six Bedrooms from the publisher, Random House Australia via NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.
The collection focuses on growing up. These stories are not aiming to deliver sock-em-in-the-guts plot twists. Rather, they’re ruminations on the angst, joys and horrors of growing up and the success of each is tied to the fact that Daylight writes about things that are so exquisitely familiar that you feel she may have had access to your teenage diary – planning a future with a boy because you noticed his legs in assembly; the awkward ‘family-friend-as-school-formal-date’; the transient personalities in a share-house; the weird dynamic when you meet up with an ex, years later.
“I arrive and what I suspected is instantly clear – that John is one of the least popular boys at his school. He leads me to a table of boys with glasses, skinny necks, untended acne.”
When you’re a teenager, you feel as if you are the first person in the world to feel so heartbroken, so in-love, so scared, so EVERYTHING. Daylight captures that, reminds the reader that those experiences are in fact commonplace and unifying, but doesn’t belittle them. Because falling in love with a boy in assembly because of his legs is very, very intense when it happens.
“And then we would walk along the back streets, leaves whispering, me talking too fast, him not talking at all, our shoulders occasionally, unhappily bumping. I was too embarrassed about my own lack of experience to take on his as well.”
Although Daylight writes about ordinary events, there’s nothing ordinary in her sentences – her words are beautiful, succinct but poignant.
“I could see the way her hair looked when it was wet – dark underneath the blonde. And the blonde slightly green, like the hair of all the kids who had pools.”
“There were books everywhere, and three little dogs who had exploded like party favours when the front door was opened.”
It’s impossible to review a short story collection without mentioning favourites – the first and last stories, Like a Virgin and J’áime Rose respectively. Her depictions of adolescence in both stories was pitch-perfect.
Also notable was the only story told from a male perspective, They Fuck You Up – this is Daylight with a menacing edge and her restraint in telling a story about domestic violence is remarkable. The story focuses on Darcy, a teen who is both abused and an emerging abuser himself. It’s a snapshot of a very critical moment in what is often cyclical behaviour – you can see how Darcy’s future will play out but Daylight reigns in the action and most of what happens is implied – the subtlety is what makes it very frightening.
“It had been easy to bring her round- he’d just had to tell her that was it, they were breaking up.”
4/5 Brilliant.
I received my copy of Six Bedrooms from the publisher, Random House Australia via NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.
May 2, 2016
Actual Rating: 3.5
June 10, 2018
Favourite stories: Six Bedrooms and Together Alone.
January 28, 2019
A book of 10 short stories, mostly about adolescence---well written and interesting---about the various challenges of young relationships. I will look for her novels for further reading enjoyment.
September 22, 2015
All reviews can be found at: eckeaubooks.tumblr.com
Tegan Bennett Daylight is an Australian teacher, critic and fiction writer. She is the author of three novels, Bombora - which was short-listed for the Australian/Vogel Literary Award and Kathleen Mitchell Award in 1996 - Safety and What Falls Away as well as a number of short fictions and essays. She currently works as a lecturer in English at Charles Sturt University.
Six Bedrooms is a collection of 10 short stories, all centered around adolescence and the awkward, shifting terrain of becoming adult at any age. Over these 10 powerful stories, Daylight beautifully and pragmatically explores some of the most important and transformative moments of life; from first love and first drinks, the painful sophistication and squalor of your first share house, cancer, losing a parent…
My favourite of the collection is Chemotherapy Bay. Here is Daylight at her most heartbreaking. Elizabeth is visiting a cancer patient, Martin in hospital and he isn’t going to make it. We do not get the administrative details of their relationship, but one can glean some clues; one suspects a past lover, a dear old friend perhaps, but it doesn’t matter. The story is the simple reality of waiting for death, with a loved one. It is painful, and often funny, ugly and beautiful.
Tegan Bennett Daylight has a beautiful and uncluttered writing style, infused with humour and reflection. Daylight’s prose treads softly throughout this collection. Details are left out, and there seems to be a certain distance or clinical detachment between reader and story, which may be slightly off-putting to some readers. But I feel that this detachment is due to the beautiful stillness that Daylight has infused into her stories. Many a character, retreat into stillness in order to cope, to make sense, to feel, to punish the self.
“I had found a virtue in stillness, in watching - in ceasing, at least for the moment…” - ‘Like a Virgin’
Six Bedrooms is a sublime and apt collection of stories that will transport you back to those particular times in adolescence. The awkward, the bizarre and outrageous, but mostly importantly, the emotional roller-coaster that is youth and growing-up. Tegan Bennett Daylight is a master at capturing these Big Moments, and the seemingly-inconsequential moments in between. A sometimes emotionally-painful read, but an absolutely mesmerising one.
Tegan Bennett Daylight is an Australian teacher, critic and fiction writer. She is the author of three novels, Bombora - which was short-listed for the Australian/Vogel Literary Award and Kathleen Mitchell Award in 1996 - Safety and What Falls Away as well as a number of short fictions and essays. She currently works as a lecturer in English at Charles Sturt University.
Six Bedrooms is a collection of 10 short stories, all centered around adolescence and the awkward, shifting terrain of becoming adult at any age. Over these 10 powerful stories, Daylight beautifully and pragmatically explores some of the most important and transformative moments of life; from first love and first drinks, the painful sophistication and squalor of your first share house, cancer, losing a parent…
My favourite of the collection is Chemotherapy Bay. Here is Daylight at her most heartbreaking. Elizabeth is visiting a cancer patient, Martin in hospital and he isn’t going to make it. We do not get the administrative details of their relationship, but one can glean some clues; one suspects a past lover, a dear old friend perhaps, but it doesn’t matter. The story is the simple reality of waiting for death, with a loved one. It is painful, and often funny, ugly and beautiful.
Tegan Bennett Daylight has a beautiful and uncluttered writing style, infused with humour and reflection. Daylight’s prose treads softly throughout this collection. Details are left out, and there seems to be a certain distance or clinical detachment between reader and story, which may be slightly off-putting to some readers. But I feel that this detachment is due to the beautiful stillness that Daylight has infused into her stories. Many a character, retreat into stillness in order to cope, to make sense, to feel, to punish the self.
“I had found a virtue in stillness, in watching - in ceasing, at least for the moment…” - ‘Like a Virgin’
Six Bedrooms is a sublime and apt collection of stories that will transport you back to those particular times in adolescence. The awkward, the bizarre and outrageous, but mostly importantly, the emotional roller-coaster that is youth and growing-up. Tegan Bennett Daylight is a master at capturing these Big Moments, and the seemingly-inconsequential moments in between. A sometimes emotionally-painful read, but an absolutely mesmerising one.
August 7, 2015
I live for coming-of-age books about sex and desire, so this is pretty much my ideal collection of short stories. Tegan explores virginity, female relationships, loss, share houses, sexual longing and much more in these ten stories that range from darkly funny to deeply moving (and sometimes both at the same time). Throughout Six Bedrooms we hear from anti-heroine Tasha more than once, though to be honest she was probably my least favourite character. I had come across the story “J’aime Rose” in another collection previously, but loved reading it again. My favourite of them all was definitely “Trouble” which had me dreaming of (and mourning) my life as an expat in London. Close behind that was “They Fuck You Up” which was distressing and devastating, and “Six Bedrooms” which was wonderfully created, and made me thankful I no longer have housemates. All in all, this is a brilliant and very strong collection which I’m going to give 4 and a half stars (the lost half is because I just couldn’t quite fall for Tasha). I am looking forward to reading more of Tegan’s writing!
Read more on my blog: Middle Chapter
Read more on my blog: Middle Chapter
August 19, 2015
These stories induced horror flashbacks of my teenage and early years, amplified by being set in my hometown and also in some instances in the same era of my own maudlin youth. No cheap tricks here, the prose is finely wrought without being laboured and the endings or fade outs ring true. Inevitably same stories made more of an impression than others, but I was glad for each.
July 14, 2015
Tegan Bennett Daylight puts her extraordinary writing skills to full use in a short story collection that powerfully captures the messiness of life and the awkward transition to adulthood.
Full review at http://bookbirdy.com/2015/07/14/revie...
Full review at http://bookbirdy.com/2015/07/14/revie...
June 29, 2016
While the writing was confident and strong, I didn't love the book. But, the writing itself deserves the four stars. A few stories were particularly great - they fuck you up, j'aime rose and six bedrooms were faves.
January 8, 2016
I had that incredible feeling when I read this that the stories were somehow reaching inside me.
August 4, 2015
I thought I'd accidentally borrowed a large print book. Why have they made the font so huge?
September 16, 2019
amazing
Six Bedrooms is about growing up; about discovering sex; and about coming of age. Full of glorious angst, embarrassment and small achievements.
Hot afternoons on school ovals, the terrifying promise of losing your virginity, sneaking booze from your mother's pantry, the painful sophistication and squalor of your first share house, cancer, losing a parent.
Tegan Bennett Daylight's powerful collection captures the dangerous, tilting terrain of becoming adult. Over these ten stories, we find acute portrayals of loss and risk, of sexual longing and wreckage, blunders and betrayals. Threaded through the collection is the experience of troubled, destructive Tasha, whose life unravels in unexpected ways, and who we come to love for her defiance, her wit and her vulnerability.
Stunningly written, and shot through with humour and menace, Six Bedrooms is a mesmerising collection of moments from adolescence through adulthood, a mix of all the potent ingredients that make up a life.
Six Bedrooms is about growing up; about discovering sex; and about coming of age. Full of glorious angst, embarrassment and small achievements.
Hot afternoons on school ovals, the terrifying promise of losing your virginity, sneaking booze from your mother's pantry, the painful sophistication and squalor of your first share house, cancer, losing a parent.
Tegan Bennett Daylight's powerful collection captures the dangerous, tilting terrain of becoming adult. Over these ten stories, we find acute portrayals of loss and risk, of sexual longing and wreckage, blunders and betrayals. Threaded through the collection is the experience of troubled, destructive Tasha, whose life unravels in unexpected ways, and who we come to love for her defiance, her wit and her vulnerability.
Stunningly written, and shot through with humour and menace, Six Bedrooms is a mesmerising collection of moments from adolescence through adulthood, a mix of all the potent ingredients that make up a life.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 17, 2025
Some hits and misses in this collection of short stories. The misses were strangely paced and slightly inane. My favourites were; Like a virgin, Trouble, Six bedrooms, J’aime Rose, and Together alone. The writing style has a concise rawness to it- sharp and impactful, without indulging. Very Didion-esque in this way. The Australian setting was warm and nostalgic, flipping between the endlessness of highschool days- summer holidays, school formals, drunkenness and regretful kisses, and then the immediacy of adult life- sharehouses, ageing parents, foreign cities, the dissatisfaction of a one night stand. Relatable and poignant, yet left a sense of melancholy. The short stories are not chronologically ordered, yet the final one leaves us with a linear sort of ending, the loss of the self vis-a-vis the death of the mother; an uncomfortable reminder that all of life’s moments ultimately amount to nothing.
September 27, 2018
My favourite type of writing - concise, closely observed, the characters so clearly drawn. This is a book to leave next to your most comfy reading chair for dipping into when you need to remember why you read.
The stories took me back to Sydney in the 1980's & 90's. That awkward time when you are growing up and figuring stuff out, when you still think stuff can be figured out.
There are 10 short stories that can easily stand alone, however the nice thing about this collection is that 4 of the stories are about the same character, Tasha, at different stages of her life. It gives a cohesiveness to the book that I liked.
The final line of the story Together Alone, also the last story in the book, so perfectly describes the situation that it took my breath away.
The stories took me back to Sydney in the 1980's & 90's. That awkward time when you are growing up and figuring stuff out, when you still think stuff can be figured out.
There are 10 short stories that can easily stand alone, however the nice thing about this collection is that 4 of the stories are about the same character, Tasha, at different stages of her life. It gives a cohesiveness to the book that I liked.
The final line of the story Together Alone, also the last story in the book, so perfectly describes the situation that it took my breath away.
June 6, 2019
Reading this book of short stories brought back all those embarrassing moments I suffered as a school girl - fancying boys and going to parties with friends in the hope a certain boy would be there, but getting drunk instead and making things worse. One story in particular reminded me of the school bullying we experienced for being a bit different or not conforming to mainstream expectations.
April 5, 2021
Sometimes I was just chugging along. Other times I was completely engrossed. Some splendid moments and images.
October 3, 2016
Back in 1969, American short story writer and novelist John Cheever complained of the underdog status of short stories, calling the short story 'something of a bum'. I bought Six Bedrooms after being exhorted by Charlotte Wood (winner of 2016 Stella Prize) to support the Australian book industry by buying more books; it turns out I am easily persuaded on such matters. Otherwise, I probably would've passed over this collection. Like a lot of folk, I don't tend to gravitate to short story collections, and my last exploration into this territory with Hot Little Hands left me feeling a little meh. However, Tegan Bennet Daylight's skill with this form has me recalibrating my position.
Six Bedrooms is an anthology of stories about young women growing up and specifically, young women growing up in Australia. Throughout the collection there are lovely passages that invoke an Australian childhood perfectly:
I know exactly what she means by green/ blond hair in the summer, but I'd forgotten that I knew. And having lived in the UK, for 10 years, I could relate to this:
There are also references to slumber parties and Cheezels, to the sweat of summer dripping down your school uniform into your pants, of possums on telegraph poles and sea pools. It was these kind of cultural references peppered casually throughout the collection that jolted my memories, as well as my empathy, about growing up as a girl in Australia.
One of the most powerful stories in this collection is 'They Fuck You Up', an obvious tribute to Phillip Larkin's poem This Be the Verse about the damage parents do to their children. This story centres on Darcy, a young boy with big plans to run away from home - he has a packed suitcase permanently stashed under his bed - and Noor, his increasingly reluctant girlfriend. As the story gathers pace, we learn how Darcy's dad exerts control over the whole family:
Increasingly, we see Darcy exhibiting the same patterns of damaging behaviours towards Noor as Darcy's dad does ('Savagely, he texted Noor again'). The powerful message here is that when it comes to violence against women (like so many things), there is a circularity and inevitability of learned behaviours.
While Hot Little Hands is receiving international attention (see for instance, The Agony and the Ecstasy of Girlhood), I would easily bypass it in favour of Six Bedrooms. Whilst it covers similar terrain as Abigail Ulman's collection, Six Bedrooms is subtler and less destructive. There are still bombshell moments- the last sentence in one story signalling the presence of incest, or in another, the death of a best friend from cancer ('At the moment of his death she had seen him turning purple, quite clearly, so aware was she of every change. Now he was a dull blue'). But these are balanced with blossoming moments of romance, or tense, but hopeful, family reunions.
In an earlier review of Hot Little Hands, I decided that my uneasiness with the book was about its lack of any redemption. But I'm now also wondering whether it's to do with my age. Tegan Bennett Daylight has been plying her trade for a lot longer than Ulman. Way back in 2002, she was named one of The Sydney Morning Herald’s Best Young Australian Novelists. Perhaps the rough edges have been smoothed over in Six Bedrooms, making it more palatable. Or perhaps, as a more balanced observer of life, she's produced a better book.
Six Bedrooms is an anthology of stories about young women growing up and specifically, young women growing up in Australia. Throughout the collection there are lovely passages that invoke an Australian childhood perfectly:
Later, we lay in our stomachs on the edges of their pool, our faces inches apart. I could see they way her hair looked when it was wet - dark underneath the blonde. And the blond slightly green, like the hair of all the kids who had pools.
I know exactly what she means by green/ blond hair in the summer, but I'd forgotten that I knew. And having lived in the UK, for 10 years, I could relate to this:
We'd been told that it would rain often in London but I hadn't thought about the kind of rain it would be be. I was used to rain or no rain: a tropical torrent that swept out of nowhere, or days of incessant sunshine.... In London it just rained, greyly, endlessley, like a weepy friend, always sorry for herself.
There are also references to slumber parties and Cheezels, to the sweat of summer dripping down your school uniform into your pants, of possums on telegraph poles and sea pools. It was these kind of cultural references peppered casually throughout the collection that jolted my memories, as well as my empathy, about growing up as a girl in Australia.
One of the most powerful stories in this collection is 'They Fuck You Up', an obvious tribute to Phillip Larkin's poem This Be the Verse about the damage parents do to their children. This story centres on Darcy, a young boy with big plans to run away from home - he has a packed suitcase permanently stashed under his bed - and Noor, his increasingly reluctant girlfriend. As the story gathers pace, we learn how Darcy's dad exerts control over the whole family:
Darcy's father stepped forward and seized Darcy's hand as it brought his spoon up to his mouth, so that the milk spilt on to Darcy's t-shirt....
'You can wait til lunchtime'.
Darcy stood there, breathing heavily, wiping the milk off his t-shirt.
'If you don't have the common courtesy to join us for breakfast then you don't deserve it'. His father was sweating, cold waxy beads of it on his white, clean shaven face.
Increasingly, we see Darcy exhibiting the same patterns of damaging behaviours towards Noor as Darcy's dad does ('Savagely, he texted Noor again'). The powerful message here is that when it comes to violence against women (like so many things), there is a circularity and inevitability of learned behaviours.
While Hot Little Hands is receiving international attention (see for instance, The Agony and the Ecstasy of Girlhood), I would easily bypass it in favour of Six Bedrooms. Whilst it covers similar terrain as Abigail Ulman's collection, Six Bedrooms is subtler and less destructive. There are still bombshell moments- the last sentence in one story signalling the presence of incest, or in another, the death of a best friend from cancer ('At the moment of his death she had seen him turning purple, quite clearly, so aware was she of every change. Now he was a dull blue'). But these are balanced with blossoming moments of romance, or tense, but hopeful, family reunions.
In an earlier review of Hot Little Hands, I decided that my uneasiness with the book was about its lack of any redemption. But I'm now also wondering whether it's to do with my age. Tegan Bennett Daylight has been plying her trade for a lot longer than Ulman. Way back in 2002, she was named one of The Sydney Morning Herald’s Best Young Australian Novelists. Perhaps the rough edges have been smoothed over in Six Bedrooms, making it more palatable. Or perhaps, as a more balanced observer of life, she's produced a better book.
March 29, 2016
Tegan Bennett Daylight’s latest collection of short stories, Six Bedrooms, are deceptively simple but written with razor sharp perception. Nothing is dressed up, the raw cynicism and naivety of adolescence is brutal, as these coming-of-age stories revisit that time in our lives of awkwardness, betrayal and unrequited love.
The narrators share many qualities, and most identify themselves as misfits. They don’t fit in and are looking for their place, watching their peers and waiting for the people that will make them whole. Rose in J’aime Rose didn’t even feel she could be a misfit, not even that tag fitted her she ‘would be nobody until someone chose’ her. Claire, in the title story, is chosen and rejects the attention, clinging to the unrequited love of the wrong man.
Although the individuals take the spotlight, the frailties of family are often what carves out their initial paths: the alcoholic mother who turns a blind eye to the missing bottles in ‘Like a Virgin’; the ongoing presence of a missing parent in ‘Firebugs’; or the sinister manipulation and cruelty in ‘They Fuck You Up’. No one is an island, no matter how separate they feel. For better or worse, our families are intrinsic to who we are. This was no more evident than in the haunting image from Together Alone, the knowledge that—‘It took effort to separate bones from flesh, but keep the flesh together. … I can feel that effort in my own flesh, the pulling, the ripping, the resistances of my body as my mother is removed from me.’ Daylight doesn’t pass judgement, it is what it is, and we are free to ponder the addictive relationships, the betrayal, the search for identity placing our own layer of perception over the experiences uncovered.
The moments we are made privy to are characters at their most vulnerable, full of self loathing and doubt, caught in the wake of life. Will they find their way or will they get lost? Life isn’t quite so black and white. At twenty-two, Rose is on a ‘current of confidence’ when she is caught in the whirlpool of her past. She hopes ‘This would be the last time’ and knows ‘it was not.’
Four of the stories revolve around a central narrator—Tasha—she isn’t particularly likeable, and yet, like the others, her failings are familiar; human. Her stories weave through the collection like a fragmented novella that snapshots her awkward train-wreck growth through adolescence. In ‘Like a Virgin’ her need to fit in ‘I was ashamed … Judy was exposing us’ is just as palpable as her need to be different in ‘The Bridge’. The final piece, ‘Together Alone’ closes the collection and in turn provides closure for Tasha—‘Now we had an opportunity to see the real meaning of things, now that my mother’s life had arranged itself into its final composition.’ Tegan Bennett Daylight’s ability to have Tasha insightfully reflect on her shortcomings, ‘… I might have been harder to be with than I thought.’ while still retaining her basic character flaws is masterful and underpins the evident skill of the author and the attraction of the collection.
The narrators share many qualities, and most identify themselves as misfits. They don’t fit in and are looking for their place, watching their peers and waiting for the people that will make them whole. Rose in J’aime Rose didn’t even feel she could be a misfit, not even that tag fitted her she ‘would be nobody until someone chose’ her. Claire, in the title story, is chosen and rejects the attention, clinging to the unrequited love of the wrong man.
Although the individuals take the spotlight, the frailties of family are often what carves out their initial paths: the alcoholic mother who turns a blind eye to the missing bottles in ‘Like a Virgin’; the ongoing presence of a missing parent in ‘Firebugs’; or the sinister manipulation and cruelty in ‘They Fuck You Up’. No one is an island, no matter how separate they feel. For better or worse, our families are intrinsic to who we are. This was no more evident than in the haunting image from Together Alone, the knowledge that—‘It took effort to separate bones from flesh, but keep the flesh together. … I can feel that effort in my own flesh, the pulling, the ripping, the resistances of my body as my mother is removed from me.’ Daylight doesn’t pass judgement, it is what it is, and we are free to ponder the addictive relationships, the betrayal, the search for identity placing our own layer of perception over the experiences uncovered.
The moments we are made privy to are characters at their most vulnerable, full of self loathing and doubt, caught in the wake of life. Will they find their way or will they get lost? Life isn’t quite so black and white. At twenty-two, Rose is on a ‘current of confidence’ when she is caught in the whirlpool of her past. She hopes ‘This would be the last time’ and knows ‘it was not.’
Four of the stories revolve around a central narrator—Tasha—she isn’t particularly likeable, and yet, like the others, her failings are familiar; human. Her stories weave through the collection like a fragmented novella that snapshots her awkward train-wreck growth through adolescence. In ‘Like a Virgin’ her need to fit in ‘I was ashamed … Judy was exposing us’ is just as palpable as her need to be different in ‘The Bridge’. The final piece, ‘Together Alone’ closes the collection and in turn provides closure for Tasha—‘Now we had an opportunity to see the real meaning of things, now that my mother’s life had arranged itself into its final composition.’ Tegan Bennett Daylight’s ability to have Tasha insightfully reflect on her shortcomings, ‘… I might have been harder to be with than I thought.’ while still retaining her basic character flaws is masterful and underpins the evident skill of the author and the attraction of the collection.
April 26, 2016
Earlier in the week I read a great blog post at “The Writes of Woman” about reviewing books and whether or not you should write negative reviews. The post, plus the review of “Viral” by Helen Fitzgerald can be viewed here.
Personally I’ve been struggling with how to write a review of Tegan Bennett Daylight’s “Six Bedrooms”. As I would like to read and review as many entrants on the 2016 Stella Prize Longlist, simply ignoring this collection of short stories is not an ideal approach, so my thoughts follow, I’m sure there are plenty of people who will disagree with my views, and that’s fine by me, I’m simply following Naomi’s lead here and “registering my own bias”.
As long term visitors to this blog would know, I’m not a huge fan of “coming of age” fiction, and it takes a pretty special approach to these tales of moving toward adulthood for me to be moved enough to write a glowing review. So first off, a book that is described, on the back cover, thus; “Tegan Bennett Daylight’s powerful collection captures the dangerous, tilting terrain of becoming an adult”, this possibly put me in a certain negative frame of mind before I’d read a page. And when I open this collection of ten short stories….the font is very large, the spacing even larger…I couldn’t help being reminded of Jen Craig’s quote in the another Stella Prize longlisted work, “Panthers and the Museum of Fire”
Every time I pass a bookshop that has the latest releases and the latest promotions of fiction in the window, I am never curious about anything that lies inside the pages whose thick white tongues have been spread just a little so that it is plain for all to see that the type has been spaced too much and the book made thicker and heavier than it might have been, and certainly more than what the book – as it appears to me – has necessarily warranted. All the new novels that are published these days are thicker and heavier that the novels themselves would usually warrant. Each of them is thicker and heavier, by virtue of the fact that the pages are thicker than they should have been and the type spaced further apart than it should have been and the cover made thicker than it should have been in the mistaken belief that the worth of a novel is always only equivalent to its thickness and weight and that the more of it you have when you buy it, the more likely you have bought something worthwhile or at least worth the excessive thickness and heaviness that the publisher has made of it.
Again, I’m already in a negative frame of mind and I’ve yet to read a word….
The collection of ten short stories opens with “Like A Virgin”, named after the Madonna hit of the mid 1980’s, it is a story of a teenager stealing her alcoholic mum’s tequila, going to a party with her friend, her friend getting drunk and the later consequences. “Other animals” a tale of high school friends, discussing boyfriends, the narrator’s ‘friend’ ends up going out with our story teller’s brother.
For my full review go to http://messybooker.blogspot.com.au/20...
Personally I’ve been struggling with how to write a review of Tegan Bennett Daylight’s “Six Bedrooms”. As I would like to read and review as many entrants on the 2016 Stella Prize Longlist, simply ignoring this collection of short stories is not an ideal approach, so my thoughts follow, I’m sure there are plenty of people who will disagree with my views, and that’s fine by me, I’m simply following Naomi’s lead here and “registering my own bias”.
As long term visitors to this blog would know, I’m not a huge fan of “coming of age” fiction, and it takes a pretty special approach to these tales of moving toward adulthood for me to be moved enough to write a glowing review. So first off, a book that is described, on the back cover, thus; “Tegan Bennett Daylight’s powerful collection captures the dangerous, tilting terrain of becoming an adult”, this possibly put me in a certain negative frame of mind before I’d read a page. And when I open this collection of ten short stories….the font is very large, the spacing even larger…I couldn’t help being reminded of Jen Craig’s quote in the another Stella Prize longlisted work, “Panthers and the Museum of Fire”
Every time I pass a bookshop that has the latest releases and the latest promotions of fiction in the window, I am never curious about anything that lies inside the pages whose thick white tongues have been spread just a little so that it is plain for all to see that the type has been spaced too much and the book made thicker and heavier than it might have been, and certainly more than what the book – as it appears to me – has necessarily warranted. All the new novels that are published these days are thicker and heavier that the novels themselves would usually warrant. Each of them is thicker and heavier, by virtue of the fact that the pages are thicker than they should have been and the type spaced further apart than it should have been and the cover made thicker than it should have been in the mistaken belief that the worth of a novel is always only equivalent to its thickness and weight and that the more of it you have when you buy it, the more likely you have bought something worthwhile or at least worth the excessive thickness and heaviness that the publisher has made of it.
Again, I’m already in a negative frame of mind and I’ve yet to read a word….
The collection of ten short stories opens with “Like A Virgin”, named after the Madonna hit of the mid 1980’s, it is a story of a teenager stealing her alcoholic mum’s tequila, going to a party with her friend, her friend getting drunk and the later consequences. “Other animals” a tale of high school friends, discussing boyfriends, the narrator’s ‘friend’ ends up going out with our story teller’s brother.
For my full review go to http://messybooker.blogspot.com.au/20...
January 26, 2016
The headline described them as 'Pungent Observations on the Twists of Modern Life'. Pungent? Well, yes. She pulls no punches, does Tegan Bennett Daylight, with some of her descriptiveness - the death of a friend; the truly awful taste of that diabolical elixir we all drank back in our formative years (Brandivino); the fragility of friendship as we first attempt to reject individuality to be accepted by the herd. And one could not fault the writing.
The headline capped a review by critic and editor Peter Pierce. He lauds the author of these ten tales for being a '...morally astute, technically adroit, anti-formulaic and unsentimental practitioner of the short story craft.' Tegan BD is all that, but for me there was something missing. Perhaps Pierce summed it up when he stated the collection exhibits '...virtuous skills but no flashiness throughout.' He intended it as a compliment, but is that what it needed to have more of an impact on this reader - a dollop of flashiness?
I initially discovered this writer some time ago. I cannot recall which of her previous novels ('Bombora', 'What Falls Away', 'Safety') it was - too many years have passed and I cannot locate the record. It may have been the first listed as I have a vague recollection it centred around surfing. I do know I liked it very much and made a mental note to watch out for future publications. But sadly, they have been a while in the making. 'Bombora' was twenty years ago - it won the Vogel. 'Safety', almost a decade.
The stories in her latest reportedly did contain linkages with past books. And in some the characters make repeat appearances. They are slices of life taken from various stages of the journey we all make - childhood and through the teens to adulthood. A few characters are seen, as from above, in multiple stages. Conclusions, deliberately, are sometimes open to more possibility for, after all, that is life. They're not sewn up neatly as a package. Just when this peruser was getting to know a protagonist and settling in, though, often a tale would terminate and we were on to the next. But I will say that with what the author has started here there is plenty of fodder for an extension into the longer form. There are novels awaiting within, Ms Daylight.
Despite the coolness of her observations, for me, this offering did not fully satisfy. Talent abounds - that's easy to discern - and I do trust it is not another decade before the next title is placed on a shelf in a book store to tempt me.
The headline capped a review by critic and editor Peter Pierce. He lauds the author of these ten tales for being a '...morally astute, technically adroit, anti-formulaic and unsentimental practitioner of the short story craft.' Tegan BD is all that, but for me there was something missing. Perhaps Pierce summed it up when he stated the collection exhibits '...virtuous skills but no flashiness throughout.' He intended it as a compliment, but is that what it needed to have more of an impact on this reader - a dollop of flashiness?
I initially discovered this writer some time ago. I cannot recall which of her previous novels ('Bombora', 'What Falls Away', 'Safety') it was - too many years have passed and I cannot locate the record. It may have been the first listed as I have a vague recollection it centred around surfing. I do know I liked it very much and made a mental note to watch out for future publications. But sadly, they have been a while in the making. 'Bombora' was twenty years ago - it won the Vogel. 'Safety', almost a decade.
The stories in her latest reportedly did contain linkages with past books. And in some the characters make repeat appearances. They are slices of life taken from various stages of the journey we all make - childhood and through the teens to adulthood. A few characters are seen, as from above, in multiple stages. Conclusions, deliberately, are sometimes open to more possibility for, after all, that is life. They're not sewn up neatly as a package. Just when this peruser was getting to know a protagonist and settling in, though, often a tale would terminate and we were on to the next. But I will say that with what the author has started here there is plenty of fodder for an extension into the longer form. There are novels awaiting within, Ms Daylight.
Despite the coolness of her observations, for me, this offering did not fully satisfy. Talent abounds - that's easy to discern - and I do trust it is not another decade before the next title is placed on a shelf in a book store to tempt me.
August 6, 2015
(I received a free copy of this book from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.)
Six Bedrooms is about growing up; about discovering sex; and about coming of age. Full of glorious angst, embarrassment and small achievements.
Hot afternoons on school ovals, the terrifying promise of losing your virginity, sneaking booze from your mother's pantry, the painful sophistication and squalor of your first share house, cancer, losing a parent. Tegan Bennett Daylight's powerful collection captures the dangerous, tilting terrain of becoming adult. Over these ten stories, we find acute portrayals of loss and risk, of sexual longing and wreckage, blunders and betrayals. Threaded through the collection is the experience of troubled, destructive Tasha, whose life unravels in unexpected ways, and who we come to love for her defiance, her wit and her vulnerability.
Stunningly written, and shot through with humour and menace, Six Bedrooms is a mesmerising collection of moments from adolescence through adulthood, a mix of all the potent ingredients that make up a life.
What a brilliant collection of stories from an author that had yet to cross my desk.
This collection starts with a story that was reminiscent of "Tully" by Paullina Simons, and progresses from there into tales of rebellious teens, unrequited love, friendships gained and lost and the general angst of becoming an adult.
So many great stories in this book, it is hard to nail down favourites. I would have to say that every single story, in its own way, touched me in some way - memories and experiences of my own childhood and teenage years are often reflected in the characters that the author has so excellently created (both good and bad) and, as some of the locations were so close to my heart, I could feel like I was slipping into another time period and watching on from the outside.
I don't often give anthologies/collections of short stories 5 stars - sometimes there are some stories that don't quite live up to the better ones...but this book does not have that issue. A fabulous read and a must-have addition to my personal library as soon as I can grab it!
Paul
ARH
Six Bedrooms is about growing up; about discovering sex; and about coming of age. Full of glorious angst, embarrassment and small achievements.
Hot afternoons on school ovals, the terrifying promise of losing your virginity, sneaking booze from your mother's pantry, the painful sophistication and squalor of your first share house, cancer, losing a parent. Tegan Bennett Daylight's powerful collection captures the dangerous, tilting terrain of becoming adult. Over these ten stories, we find acute portrayals of loss and risk, of sexual longing and wreckage, blunders and betrayals. Threaded through the collection is the experience of troubled, destructive Tasha, whose life unravels in unexpected ways, and who we come to love for her defiance, her wit and her vulnerability.
Stunningly written, and shot through with humour and menace, Six Bedrooms is a mesmerising collection of moments from adolescence through adulthood, a mix of all the potent ingredients that make up a life.
What a brilliant collection of stories from an author that had yet to cross my desk.
This collection starts with a story that was reminiscent of "Tully" by Paullina Simons, and progresses from there into tales of rebellious teens, unrequited love, friendships gained and lost and the general angst of becoming an adult.
So many great stories in this book, it is hard to nail down favourites. I would have to say that every single story, in its own way, touched me in some way - memories and experiences of my own childhood and teenage years are often reflected in the characters that the author has so excellently created (both good and bad) and, as some of the locations were so close to my heart, I could feel like I was slipping into another time period and watching on from the outside.
I don't often give anthologies/collections of short stories 5 stars - sometimes there are some stories that don't quite live up to the better ones...but this book does not have that issue. A fabulous read and a must-have addition to my personal library as soon as I can grab it!
Paul
ARH
September 9, 2015
Six Bedrooms is a collection of short stories, many of which have been previously published in other anthologies. They’ve been reworked and interconnected here to weave a story about the highs and lows of young adulthood – the journey of finding love and finding yourself as you transition from the teens towards the rest of your life. The stories are set in Sydney and London; starting in the 1980s and moving onwards as the characters age.
The 10 stories are linked by a central character, Tasha, although I found the ‘characters’ less important than the emotional journeys they represent. In fact, in a lot of cases, the characters are not fleshed out in great detail; we’re left to question exactly how old they might be, or how their connection to Tasha and her friends and family might play out. Many details are implied, which reminded me of the very nature of being young, where so many relationships are punctuated with misunderstandings, half-truths and false impressions.
As a teen, it’s so easy to see yourself as the centre of the universe, assuming all those who orbit you are making their life decisions just to spite you; forgetting that every adult, and every other teen, is bringing their own baggage to your interactions. Unlike life, a short story collection with narrative flexibility means we get to revisit some of the same scenarios from the perspective of different participants in the action. Other stories, though, remain enigmatic and inconclusive – perhaps opening the door to a follow-on collection? Or perhaps, again, functioning in the way our real life stories do, where in some cases we’ll simply never understand other people’s motives or find out what-happened-next.
A full review of this book can be found at http://thischarmingmum.com
The 10 stories are linked by a central character, Tasha, although I found the ‘characters’ less important than the emotional journeys they represent. In fact, in a lot of cases, the characters are not fleshed out in great detail; we’re left to question exactly how old they might be, or how their connection to Tasha and her friends and family might play out. Many details are implied, which reminded me of the very nature of being young, where so many relationships are punctuated with misunderstandings, half-truths and false impressions.
As a teen, it’s so easy to see yourself as the centre of the universe, assuming all those who orbit you are making their life decisions just to spite you; forgetting that every adult, and every other teen, is bringing their own baggage to your interactions. Unlike life, a short story collection with narrative flexibility means we get to revisit some of the same scenarios from the perspective of different participants in the action. Other stories, though, remain enigmatic and inconclusive – perhaps opening the door to a follow-on collection? Or perhaps, again, functioning in the way our real life stories do, where in some cases we’ll simply never understand other people’s motives or find out what-happened-next.
A full review of this book can be found at http://thischarmingmum.com
November 29, 2015
Six Bedrooms is a collection of 10 short stories about the pain of coming of age. Some are loosely connected to each other via the sad and vulnerable Tasha. I enjoyed reading about her sad family life and close friends so much that I wished these stories had been spun out into a novel.
There’s so much familiarity in these stories – from the sly loss of virginity under the nose of a boyfriend to the quick and dirty one night stands had after parties in falling down inner city terraces, Bennett Daylight beautifully evokes the strange mix of uncertainty and freedom of what it is to be young before you truly know yourself.
Bennett Daylight’s writing is really lovely – from the dogs at her speech therapist’s house – ‘There were books everywhere, and three little dogs who had exploded like party favours when the front door was opened,’ to the beautiful scene Tasha has with her mother, ‘as the autumn afternoon slowed into gold‘, there’s a slow, beautiful feel to the writing that makes it all the more poignant.
The story that has stayed with me is the title one – Six Bedrooms. Set in a share house, it really honestly shows the web of friendships and hatred that are stirred up when people with lots of time on their hands live in each other’s pockets. The humiliation the narrator experiences when the real story of one of the men she has been obsessing over is revealed felt so real to me.
I also loved the way each story ended with just enough information for the reader to piece together what had happened without joining the dots for them.
This is a beautiful, touching and wise collection.
There’s so much familiarity in these stories – from the sly loss of virginity under the nose of a boyfriend to the quick and dirty one night stands had after parties in falling down inner city terraces, Bennett Daylight beautifully evokes the strange mix of uncertainty and freedom of what it is to be young before you truly know yourself.
Bennett Daylight’s writing is really lovely – from the dogs at her speech therapist’s house – ‘There were books everywhere, and three little dogs who had exploded like party favours when the front door was opened,’ to the beautiful scene Tasha has with her mother, ‘as the autumn afternoon slowed into gold‘, there’s a slow, beautiful feel to the writing that makes it all the more poignant.
The story that has stayed with me is the title one – Six Bedrooms. Set in a share house, it really honestly shows the web of friendships and hatred that are stirred up when people with lots of time on their hands live in each other’s pockets. The humiliation the narrator experiences when the real story of one of the men she has been obsessing over is revealed felt so real to me.
I also loved the way each story ended with just enough information for the reader to piece together what had happened without joining the dots for them.
This is a beautiful, touching and wise collection.
June 7, 2016
‘The house we lived in had three storeys and six bedrooms.’
In this collection of short stories, Tegan Bennett Daylight explores some of the hazards of moving from adolescence to adulthood. It’s an invitation, especially if you are female, to revisit your own transition to adulthood. Do you remember school ovals on hot afternoons? Did you ever sneak alcohol from home, or elsewhere? How sophisticated we thought we were, some of us with cigarettes, slaves to fashion, dreading and dreaming of sex. Wanting (usually) to be popular and one of the ‘in crowd’. And then moving from home, into hostel accommodation or share houses.
Some travel, others stay near home. The dramas of this period of life: all-encompassing at the time, usually less so with the passage of time. Oh yes, memories.
In these short stories, Tegan Bennett Daylight takes us back to that time. A time when most of us felt uncomfortable in bodies that were changing in ways we couldn’t control. A time when many of us had our first encounters with death, with sex, with learning to navigate in a world where we had to take responsibility. One young woman, Tasha, appears in several of these stories. This provides some structure to the snippets of life we observe, a degree of continuity in the shift to adulthood.
The stories are each short journeys, we don’t stay in the past for long. Just long enough to catch a glimpse, just long enough for memories to surface. Long enough to remember how awkward life was, how filled with anguish, despair and disappointment. And long enough, to realise that, if we are reading about it now, we survived.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
In this collection of short stories, Tegan Bennett Daylight explores some of the hazards of moving from adolescence to adulthood. It’s an invitation, especially if you are female, to revisit your own transition to adulthood. Do you remember school ovals on hot afternoons? Did you ever sneak alcohol from home, or elsewhere? How sophisticated we thought we were, some of us with cigarettes, slaves to fashion, dreading and dreaming of sex. Wanting (usually) to be popular and one of the ‘in crowd’. And then moving from home, into hostel accommodation or share houses.
Some travel, others stay near home. The dramas of this period of life: all-encompassing at the time, usually less so with the passage of time. Oh yes, memories.
In these short stories, Tegan Bennett Daylight takes us back to that time. A time when most of us felt uncomfortable in bodies that were changing in ways we couldn’t control. A time when many of us had our first encounters with death, with sex, with learning to navigate in a world where we had to take responsibility. One young woman, Tasha, appears in several of these stories. This provides some structure to the snippets of life we observe, a degree of continuity in the shift to adulthood.
The stories are each short journeys, we don’t stay in the past for long. Just long enough to catch a glimpse, just long enough for memories to surface. Long enough to remember how awkward life was, how filled with anguish, despair and disappointment. And long enough, to realise that, if we are reading about it now, we survived.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
July 21, 2024
I went into this wrong, thinking it would be a novel about 6 teens and the plot would overlap and come together and it would all make sense in the end. It's rather an anthology of short stories. Which don't overlap other than in it's uncomfortable theme, of which the book should be named after, something more like 6 stupid people, or what not to do in bedrooms, or 6 ways you shouldn't loose your virginity/6 obvious walking red flag men not to have sex with (example, your boyfriend's brother?). I think I disliked it because, although it has wonderful prose, the characters didn't change at all, and if they where realising anything, it didn't show it in action.
Perhaps it's supposed to show how 'kids acting like adults, and wanting to grow up faster' cannot be more stupid, or that dumb decisions can set the tone of the rest of your life.???
I absolutely adored The Details, so I don't think I should have read it expecting something like the collection of Tegan Bennett Daylights short personal essays either.
It just felt like I was left hanging with all of their stories, like it would tell me that Tasha's friends brother and father were both sleeping with the maid and that was her job (disgusting), then at the end just randomly say they hadn't been having sex with the maid and it wasn't her job. ????
I'm probably missing something. And it was an interesting read, but if you haven't, read The Details On Love, Death and Reading instead, absolutely masterful!
Perhaps it's supposed to show how 'kids acting like adults, and wanting to grow up faster' cannot be more stupid, or that dumb decisions can set the tone of the rest of your life.???
I absolutely adored The Details, so I don't think I should have read it expecting something like the collection of Tegan Bennett Daylights short personal essays either.
It just felt like I was left hanging with all of their stories, like it would tell me that Tasha's friends brother and father were both sleeping with the maid and that was her job (disgusting), then at the end just randomly say they hadn't been having sex with the maid and it wasn't her job. ????
I'm probably missing something. And it was an interesting read, but if you haven't, read The Details On Love, Death and Reading instead, absolutely masterful!
June 26, 2016
This set of stories was shortlisted for the Stella Prize and deservedly so. The first story, Like A Virgin (from the Madonna song) introduces us to Tasha, whom we meet in a number of the stories as she negotiates the anger, rebellion and lusts of adolescence. Daylight manages very cleverly to use Tasha's voice as an adult (now a mother and comfortable in her own skin) as a lens through which we experience her coming of age. The stories enact the Tim Winton epigraph ' ... the past is in us, and not behind us.'
Daylight's writing is strong, controlled and unsentimental. Some stories focus on the end of life and the final story 'Together Alone', in which Tasha awaits her mother's death, is especially moving. Some stories include embarrassing and comic moments too showing Daylight is able to work successfully across the emotional range.
I often find that however much I enjoy modern short stories, they are not memorable in the way traditional short stories (for example an O Henry, a Maugham or a Hemingway) would be. I think this is because they are open ended, offering many possibilities beyond the text and providing fluidity rather than closure. This is the case here - but although I may not easily remember details of these stories down the track the sense of them will stay with me. I know I would get great pleasure from reading them again.
Daylight's writing is strong, controlled and unsentimental. Some stories focus on the end of life and the final story 'Together Alone', in which Tasha awaits her mother's death, is especially moving. Some stories include embarrassing and comic moments too showing Daylight is able to work successfully across the emotional range.
I often find that however much I enjoy modern short stories, they are not memorable in the way traditional short stories (for example an O Henry, a Maugham or a Hemingway) would be. I think this is because they are open ended, offering many possibilities beyond the text and providing fluidity rather than closure. This is the case here - but although I may not easily remember details of these stories down the track the sense of them will stay with me. I know I would get great pleasure from reading them again.
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