Chloe Hooper – författare

From the bestselling author of The Tall Man and The Arsonist, a personal tale about death, life and the enchantment of stories. With illustrations by Anna Walker.‘A striking voyage of discovery.’ Observer Let me tell you a story…When Chloe Hooper’s partner is diagnosed with a rare and aggressive illness, she has to find a way to tell their two young sons.By instinct, she turns to the bookshelf. Can the news be broken as a bedtime tale? Is there a perfect book to prepare children for loss? Hooper embarks on a quest to find what practical lessons children’s literature—with its innocent orphans and evil adults, magic, monsters and anthropomorphic animals—can teach about grief and resilience in real life.As she discovers, ‘the right words are an incantation, a spell of hope for the future.’ From the Brothers Grimm to Frances Hodgson Burnett and Tolkien and Dahl—all of whom suffered childhood bereavements—she follows the breadcrumbs of the world’s favourite authors, searching for the deep wisdom in their books and lives.Both memoir and manual, Bedtime Story is stunningly illustrated by the New York Times award-winning Anna Walker. In an age of worldwide uncertainty, here is a profound and moving exploration of the dark and light of storytelling.‘Exquisitely beautiful. This book is an act of love.’ Anna Funder, author of All That I Am and Stasiland ‘Chloe Hooper has a formidable talent to take complex stories and ideas and truths, and to distil them into a language of direct and powerful beauty. This is a story of grief and of patience, of hope and acceptance. It is also a reminder of the solace that books give us, and of how the imaginary worlds we dive into as children remain with is for all our lives, of how they guide us into adulthood and maturity. There is a quiet courage and strength in this book. It is both gentle and uncompromising, a love letter to family and to literature that is bracingly unsentimental. I was profoundly moved, and profoundly grateful.’ Christos Tsiolkas, author of The Slap and Damascus‘Bedtime Story is not just a striking voyage of discovery, but a beautifully produced object. The text is illustrated by Anna Walker, whose delicately dark brushwork complements the text: trees materialise in the margins, leading the way; birds race across the page; a black thunderstorm breaks out between chapters. It’s a perfect reminder that fairytales, grounded in reality, are as dark as life itself.’ Observer

In July 2023, in a quiet Australian country town, Erin Patterson - stay-at-home mother and true crime devotee - invited her husband's devoutly Christian family to lunch. Within days, three of her guests were dead and the fourth was in a coma. They had all been poisoned by death cap mushrooms. Two years later, Patterson stood trial, accused of three counts of murder and one count of attempted murder. The court case gripped the nation and fascinated people all over the world. Among those drawn into the drama were three renowned Australian writers: Helen Garner, Chloe Hooper and Sarah Krasnostein. Together, they joined the daily media scrum at the Latrobe Valley Law Courts and spent long days immersed in the case's sinister and complex themes: love, hate, jealousy, revenge, marriage, money, mycology and murder. The Mushroom Tapes is a true crime book like no other - a uniquely enlightening study of Erin Patterson and our collective obsession with her strange and terrible crime.

In July 2023, in a quiet Australian country town, Erin Patterson - stay-at-home mother and true crime devotee - invited her husband's devoutly Christian family to lunch. Within days, three of her guests were dead and the fourth was in a coma. They had all been poisoned by death cap mushrooms. Two years later, Patterson stood trial, accused of three counts of murder and one count of attempted murder. The court case gripped the nation and fascinated people all over the world. Among those drawn into the drama were three renowned Australian writers: Helen Garner, Chloe Hooper and Sarah Krasnostein. Together, they joined the daily media scrum at the Latrobe Valley Law Courts and spent long days immersed in the case's sinister and complex themes: love, hate, jealousy, revenge, marriage, money, mycology and murder. The Mushroom Tapes is a true crime book like no other - a uniquely enlightening study of Erin Patterson and our collective obsession with her strange and terrible crime.

On the scorching February day in 2009 that became known as Black Saturday, a man lit two fires in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley, then sat on the roof of his house to watch the inferno. In the Valley, where the rates of crime were the highest in the state, more than thirty people were known to police as firebugs. But the detectives soon found themselves on the trail of a man they didn’t know. The Arsonist takes readers on the hunt for this man, and inside the strange puzzle of his mind. It is also the story of fire in Australia, and of a community that owed its existence to that very element. The command of fire has defined and sustained us as a species – understanding its abuse will define our future. A powerful real-life thriller written with Hooper’s trademark lyric detail and nuance, The Arsonist is a reminder that in an age of fire, all of us are gatekeepers.Praise for other titles by Chloe Hooper'Life springs from every page of this enthralling book.' - Helen Garner'A gripping, heart-stopping piece of true-crime reportage . . . Deserves the widest possible audience.' - Sunday Times'It is impossible to overestimate the importance of this book.' - Peter Carey 'A sad, beautiful, frightening account of one man's pointless death . . . Every character is explored for their contradictions, every situation observed for its nuances, every easy judgement suspended . . . Hooper finds the common humanity in the accused and the accuser, the police officer and the street drinker, the living and the dead.' - Mark Dapin, Good Weekend, Sydney Morning Herald