Author(s): Jane Rawson

Australian Fiction

In 1930s Adelaide, four women turn to witchcraft to undermine a new authoritarian government determined to enforce their marriage and virtual enslavement. In the 1930s in Adelaide, sisters Margaret and Esther Beasley and their friend Phyllis O Donnell are learning to be witches. Their guide is Audrey Macquarie, a glamorous, Communist schoolmate who was taught the art of changing dreams by her suffragette great-aunt, Delia Maddingley. This subtle magic, known only to spinsters, has been passed from aunt to niece for generations. Now this group of young women are using it to power their own small revolution, undermining a system that wants them married, uneducated and at home. As Europe begins falling to fascism, these women the Semaphore Supper Club stumble on a nest of Nazi sympathisers in the poetry salons of Adelaide. The poets political connections help them rise in power, until the Club finds they aren t just fighting chauvinist writers but have taken on Australia s new authoritarian government. As the government discovers it too can harness dreams, Margaret, Esther, Phyl and Audrey face an overwhelming force they cannot defeat. Each of them must decide whether and how to continue the struggle in the face of almost certain failure. A History of Dreams explores female friendship, the power of finding a vocation, and the importance of joy in a time of political darkness. It asks what our responsibilities are when faced with an unjust government, particularly when we have the privilege to look the other way. About the Author Jane grew up in Canberra and travelled via San Francisco and Melbourne to Tasmania, where she works as a writer for a conservation organisation. Her first novel, A Wrong turn at the Office of Unmade Lists, won the Small Press Network s Most Underrated Book Award and her second novel, From the Wreck, won the Aurealis Award and was longlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award. She is also the author of a non-fiction guide to surviving and living with climate change called The Handbook and a novella, Formaldehyde, which won the 2015 Seizure Viva La Novella Prize. You can read her essays in Living with the Anthropocene; Fire, Flood, Plague; and Reading like an Australian Writer. janerawson.com