Enlivened by wit and a knack for the stunningly vivid turn of phrase…What makes Blue Skies a joy to read is the energy and colour of the writing, a meticulous—and very funny—gift for dialogue…a marvellous economy of words.' The Times 'A remarkably original Australian writer…wickedly funny. Helen Hodgman has a sharp eye for detail and an even sharper ear for dialogue.' Sunday Times 'A first novel by a writer to watch, a penetrating tragi-comedy.' Observer 'The debut of a marvellously intractable writer.' Sunday Telegraph UK 'Blacker-than-black humour…[a] gifted first novel.' Guardian 'Entirely believable and deeply felt.' New York Times 'Thoroughly entertaining.' Irish Times 'A born writer with a style and an élan which are all her own.' Auberon Waugh 'Helen Hodgman's sharp details of the everyday, infused as they are with weird hallucination, distill the very essence of Tasmanian gothic.' Carmel Bird

Helen Hodgman is the author of the novels Jack and Jill (1978; winner of the Somerset Maugham Award), Broken Words (1988; winner of the Christina Stead Prize), Passing Remarks (1996), Waiting for Matindi (1998) and The Bad Policeman (2001). Blue Skies was first published in 1976.