Grace and Marigold

It’s 1974 when 20-year-old Grace arrives in London determined to shrug off her Australian past and reinvent herself. While embracing her new life in the Free Republic of Beltonia, a street of communal squats, she’s haunted by the unbearable thought that she might be a lesbian – a fate she considers almost worse than death. Before long, she falls (secretly) in love with Marigold, upper class, enigmatic and avowedly straight. When Marigold mysteriously disappears without a trace, the search for her leads Grace to a life-changing epiphany.Evoking the spirit of 1970s London through the world of squatting and political protests, street parties, encounter groups and gurus, and the mayhem of a rackety publishing outfit where Grace gets a job, Grace & Marigold is both witty and moving in its exploration of the inner turmoil, and ultimate liberation of a young woman’s journey to self-acceptance.

A vivid, irresistible portrait of a young Australian adrift in eccentric 1970s London. Taut and beautifully crafted, Mira Robertson writes with a tender understanding of the waywardness of youth. —Carrie Tiffany, winner of the Stella Prize for Mateship with Birds

Grace and Marigold is an engrossing, deeply satisfying read, filled with unforgettable characters. It is an intelligent and evocative study of a tumultuous time and place, and a moving and thought-provoking portrait of self-discovery. —Michelle Wright, author of Small Acts of Defiance

Mira Robertson is like a perceptive street photographer, but with words, capturing dazzling snapshots of remarkable people in a fleeting moment and place. We slip into a pitch-perfect London in the seventies alongside Grace, as her life swirls with squatters and strikes, casual encounters and shifting alliances, fears and freedoms, and those too-familiar feelings of the outsider. If you were there, then, you’ll remember. If you weren’t there, Grace and Marigold will bring it vividly to life before your eyes. —Kelly Gardiner, author of Goddess

I want to live in this novel. A vivid Sapphic coming-age-romp through Bohemian 1970s London. Witty, moving and utterly real. —Kate Davies, author of Nuclear Family