A striking, lyrical work of autofiction that follows a struggling artist living on the margins in 1990s Melbourne.
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.
