Sun Bookshop

Join us for a conversation between Lech Blaine and Emily Westmoreland to celebrate the release of Lech's new book, Australian Gospel. Michael and Mary Shelley are Christian fanatics who loathe their fellow Australians - especially their 'reckless indulgence of alcohol and obsession with idiotic ball sports'. Lenore and Tom Blaine are working-class Queensland publicans raising a large family in a raucous, loving, sports-obsessed home. There's just one problem. Lenore and Tom are foster parents to three of Michael and Mary's children, who were removed from the Shelleys as infants. And the Shelleys are prepared to do anything to get them back. Anything. Australian Gospel is the true story of Lech Blaine's family, a stranger-than-fiction tale that is heartbreaking, hilarious and altogether astonishing. Lech Blaine is the author of the memoir Car Crash and the Quarterly Essays Top Blokes and Bad Cop. He is the 2023 Charles Perkins Centre writer in residence. His writing has appeared in Good Weekend, Griffith Review, The Guardian and The Monthly. His forthcoming book is Australian Gospel. Emily Westmoreland is the Program Director for Willy Lit Fest. She runs Dinner Party Press, is the publisher of PENinsula, and is part of the team behind the Desperate Literature Prize for short fiction. She works as a bookseller by day. In 2023, she is the Penguin Random House Young Bookseller of the Year.