Where I Slept

by Libby Angel

When he asks what kind of work I do, I tell him I am a poet.
‘Poetry will break your heart,’ he says.
‘Or, perhaps it is the only thing that won’t,’ I say.

In this startling work of autofiction the unnamed narrator plunges us headlong into 1990s Melbourne bohemia—a whirlwind of friends and strangers, decadence and despair, sex and drugs—through the places she slept: a boarding house with drug-addled landlord, share houses of aspiring artists and petty criminals, and roughing it on the streets.

She lives for poetry and hungers for beauty, purpose and a place to anchor herself. Her voice is ironic, deadpan and darkly comic, an Artline marker her weapon of choice in expressing her presence in a city both richly accommodating and indifferent.

Libby Angel’s brilliant new work is filled with characters you’ll wish you knew and those you’re glad you don’t. Where I Slept is an unforgettable portrait of a life on the fringes, a poem of longing and desire.

Genres: Fiction

304 pages, Paperback

First published May 30, 2023

About the author

Libby Angel is an Australian poet whose work has appeared in several journals. The Trapeze Act is her first novel.

Reviews

[johnny ♡ · Rating 3 out of 5]

dreamy as hell with an odd tone. it kind of makes you long to run away and travel, scraping by. too bad i’m too much of introvert. didn’t love the ending, but it’s an interesting read. our main character doesn’t feel very present most of the time, unfortunately.

[Peter McLoghlin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Repetitive and boring.
No clear path to anywhere.

[Text Publishing]

The following book reviews have been shared by Text Publishing – publisher of Where I Slept

‘A kicker of a novel, full of beauty and grit.’
Mandy Beaumont, author of The Furies

‘An unsparing, unflinching and exquisitely precise rendering of 1990s Melbourne counter-culture.’
Edwina Preston, author of Bad Art Mother

‘Sharp and sobering…Angel’s work shares the grittiness of Helen Garner’s writing…and the dry, black humour of Meg Mason.’
Michelle Atkins, Books+Publishing

‘The book, like the art of Warhol and his contemporaries, is presented in jagged, crafted sections…In a sense, Where I Slept is a '90s version of Helen Garner’s Monkey Grip…But it’s something far stranger and darker…Garner’s narrators are finding a new normal; Angel’s narrator rejects normal altogether.’
InDaily

‘Angel has created an intense period piece in this book, beautifully written, full of surprisingly funny detail and scenes that live beyond the page, with crisp dialogue that draws the reader (back) into this time now long past. Where I Slept really got to me, and I’m still thinking about it.’
Readings Monthly

‘Eschewing adornment and cliche, Angel writes with a poet’s precision and she evokes no character as viscerally as they places they rest their heads…Angel’s work is an immersive, elevated chronicle of her own suffering and exhilaration, offering an engaging protagonist through whom unsentimental truths are revealed about a life lived on the margins.’
Guardian

‘[Libby Angel] does a brilliant job of bringing to life her protagonist’s squalid surrounds…Where I Slept will solidify Angel’s reputation as a literary force to be reckoned with. The book’s gritty urbanity and feminist sensibility make it a Monkey Grip of the Y2K era.’
Australian Book Review

‘Laced with biting humour and a poetic quality…Angel’s visceral depictions of cramped, unsanitary, unfettered living conditions go to the heart of her intentions to deconstruct the perceived romanticism of the freewheeling, bohemian lifestyle.’
Age

‘Where I Slept paints a rich and immersive picture of the artistic Bohemia of 1990s urban Melbourne…The novel is, in the end, a sort of ode to exploration and personal growth.’
Ramona Magazine

‘This novel is as much a portrait of vanished Melbourne as it is of the narrator’s artistic journey.’
Good Reading (4 stars)

‘Reminiscent of Helen Garner’s Monkey Grip, but for the grunge generation.’
Advertiser

[Lexi RL · Rating 4 out of 5]

A portrait of a time and a scene, of life on the fringes, and the interplay between art, activism, and the challenges faced by people in transient and insecure housing, including experience of homelessness.

I found this an easy one-weekend-read, it flows well and is quite poetic.

It isn’t really plot or character driven, more a series of vignettes.

I found it quite nostalgic as someone who’s spent time living in Collingwood, to experience Smith St and surrounds through different eyes and different times.

[OSKR · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing, Enigmatic and Close to Home

... by "close to home" I mean this describes a scene I know very well. I recognize at least one of the characters and many of the locations. This is inner Melbourne in the late 90s. I arrived in town only a few years later and inhabited some of the same territory. I often felt quite nostalgic reading this and I found myself thinking about the book for weeks later.

What I Loved

The character of Mace is amazing. The scene where they danced to drum and bass cassettes alone at a party felt straight out of my own life. I also really loved the bit with Pearl of Mercy. When she invited her to sleep in her bed ... I think that may have been my favourite chapter.

I loved the art pranks and hijinx she got up to in "Forty-Seven". I remember very well the crazy fashion and the social advantages of looking interesting. When she abruptly cuts off her hair, she finds she isn't as popular. I also found the sense of art gatekeepers unfortunately very familiar. Older figures who don't like her style and block her path.

This section of the book, essentially the bulk of it, about the wild sharehouse, I really loved. I found it hard to stop reading and I looked forward to picking it up and reading more. And it's a hefty tome of a book, there's a lot to get through.

What I Thought Didn't Work

My biggest complaint is the camouflage given to characters and places. It's applied very haphazardly. Some characters are reduced to initials, some have nicknames and some are presumably pseudonyms. It makes for annoying reading. Can we have some consistency please?

Similarly the streets are badly disguised. S and G Streets are so obviously Smith and Gertrude it seems riduculous to even bother. Swanston Street also gets called S Street once or twice. I'm pretty sure High street is actually Brunswick Street, which is further confusing because of course there's an actual High Street not far away beginning in Northcote. I don't fell like the Text editors were doing their job here. Either make up clever false names for everything or just use the real names consistently please.

And Tidy Town is Adelaide right? It's 8 hours away and it's got a university. Sometimes though it felt like it was portrayed as a much smaller place which made me very confused.

Unfotunately I didn't feel the ending was great. It was way too abrupt and a bit confusing. We get a weird rough chapter or two that seems from a different timeline - apparently about Happy the sax player struggling with addiction. Then it ends with a vague implication that the narrator is going to New York. Er... how? She doesn't seem organized enough. A few chapters ago she was basically homeless. How did she save the money? Why New York?

I had mixed feelings about the short lyrics she scrawls around town. Many chapters finish with these sentences, that are apparently lines from songs and poems. It didn't add anything to the story for me. I feel like this could have been removed entirely without affecting the book. I wondered why the author put them in there. It would have made more sense if she was writing actual original poems, and the poems were included. Short, free verse poems I mean. This was another area that felt raw and random and made me wonder about the editing process.

It also seems necessary to mention the title, which almost turned me off reading the book! "Where I Slept" is almost an anti-title. I would have called it "Lost on Smith and Gertrude", but really anything would have been an improvement.

What Affected Me Emotionally

The Melbourne that Libby Angel describes is in many ways still exactly the same. It's the arts capital of Australia, and it draws artists from all over the country, and plenty from further away too. These artists don't necessarily thrive in Melbourne. At first the city can seem welcoming. But all too often the welcoming only extends so far. When you have money or mental health problems, the friendliness can end real quick.

I also felt very nostalgic for what in many ways was a much better time for artists. I mean, she's getting the dole indefinitely without going to a single meeting (apparently). I liked being returned to a world where the scene was arranged around a literal neighbourhood. Messages posted on the window of "Friends of the Earth", rather than social media.

In Conclusion

Strongly recommeded! Thank you Libby, amazing book, I'd love to meet in person one day. I'm just about to read "the Trapeze Act". Please look up my own novel and check out my other reviews. :-)

PS - the character I recognize is Anthony Riddell (what an absolute legend). In the book he is known only as "Egg Man", and he's pretty easy to recognize. The protagonist lives with him in Fitzroy for a while, and even plays in his band for one night. In the book the band is called "Eggbeater" but in reality it was "Volvox". Anthony Riddell is also an author and published a bunch of astonishing experimental novels (at time of writing he has one book on goodreads with zero reviews). Once I owned several of these books but I've long since lost them (I'd love to get hold of them again).

[Kristin · Rating 3 out of 5]

This novel offers up keenly observational descriptions, exquisitely beautiful in its capture of the little details. It follows a young woman through the bohemian city sharehouses and squats of 1990s Melbourne counterculture, as she tries to live a life of artistic integrity, although what that is precisely is vague and unclear — it’s seemingly about living and breathing as public art itself. There is something about the unembellished telling that is raw and bare of any glamorisation, it doesn’t romanticise, just records. It’s labeled as auto-fiction, a novel presumably based around some of the author’s own life experiences.

I picked this up randomly from the display of the bookstore to read on the train, and was totally surprised by how much I loved it. It elevated even the most grotty environments with its writing, and offered a unique perspective into different ways of living.

[Tracy Cooper · Rating 4 out of 5]

Four. This book sets a cracking pace and the writing crisp. It is going to be special to me forever - I was in that precise place and time, with those people, at those rallies, sleeping on those couches. It doesn’t just remember Melbourne in the 90’s, it distills it. It fizzed my brain with memories.

[Jane]

This book is dull - the characters are dull, the places the narrator goes are dull, Melbourne sounds dull, her friends are dull, all in all a dull, repetitive and boring book that wasn’t worth finishing.

[Tom Robinson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found most of the characters (a group of bohemian artists in their early twenties, living in inner Melbourne share houses and squats) to be selfish,
Pretentious and annoying, rather than cool and interesting. This is probably just because I’m getting old. Otherwise was a fairly enjoyable read.

[Justine · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is dreary as, and that's despite me being a key demographic of potential readership, having been there at the time!

[Romany · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think Patti Smith would like this. Just as good as Astragal.

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Poetic and oddly captivating

[lewis · Rating 2 out of 5]

🌕🌕🌑🌑🌑

Chaotic and unhinged, but way, way too long.

[Lewis Fisher · Rating 4 out of 5]

the unofficial sidequel to tilly lawless nothing but my body. autofiction is such a fun and often strange time.

[Sophie Smyth · Rating 1 out of 5]

slow, no plot, unrelatable characters. at least the chapters were short.

[Allanah Freddi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Such a beautiful portrayal of living as a homeless girl in Melbourne in the 90s.

[Skye Gradisen · Rating 1 out of 5]

1⭐️ the blurb was more entertaining than the book itself.