About
Justine Ettler Biography
Justine Ettler was born in Sydney. She completed an MA in writing at UTS on a scholarship in 1990, won an APRA scholarship in 1991 and completed her PhD in American Literature, Feminism and Media Studies at the University of Sydney in 2013 which is available online at: http://ses.library.usyd.edu.au/bitstream/2123/10020/1/J_Ettler_Thesis.pd.
Justine’s second novel, The River Ophelia, (Picador, 1995) was an instant best-seller in Australia and New Zealand. It is available now in a new edition which includes a previously unpublished Author's Note as well as an account of the original media controversy. https://books.pronoun.com/the-river-ophelia/ It won the best cover award in 1995 and was shortlisted for the Aurealis Award for Best Horror Novel in 1995. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurealis_Award_for_best_horror_novel. Justine's first novel, Marilyn’s Almost Terminal New York Adventure, (Picador) was published the following year to critical acclaim. As noted by Murray Waldren in The Weekend Australian, Justine made Australian literary history by being the first female debut writer to sell two books to a mainstream publisher.
In 1997 Justine was selected as one of six Australian authors to tour the UK as part of the New Images Writer’s Tour, and subsequently moved to London where she lived until 2007. During her time in the UK, she wrote a business plan for internet start-up company Deckchair.com (Sir Bob Geldof later became a board member), worked as a book reviewer at The Observer, The Evening Standard, and The Times Literary Supplement, lectured in Creative Writing, and worked as a reader for the London literary agency, Cornerstones, as well as for The Literary Consultancy. In 2005 she won a grant from the Arts Council of England for her third novel. During this time, Justine enjoyed many lengthy visits to Prague, and attended Czech literature seminars at SSEES, the University of London, and studied Czech at the Czech Centre.
Justine has worked as a university lecturer, a freelance journalist, a freelance reader/editor, a business writer and as a bookseller, among other things. Her fictional work has been widely published in anthologies.
In addition to her career as an author, Justine is an accomplished musician. Performing as a flautist at the Sydney Opera House while in her teens, Justine also taught flute at Sydney Girls High, and has accompanied members of the Australian band, The Go-Betweens.
Recent Book Publications
+ Bohemia Beach, Transit Lounge, 2018
Recent Publications
+ "From Paris With Panic," by Justine Ettler, The Weekend Australian, 24 Apr, 2020, https://www.theaustralian.com.au/subscribe/news/1/?sourceCode=TAWEB_WRE170_a_GGL&dest=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theaustralian.com.au%2Farts%2Freview%2Fcoronavirus-from-paris-with-panic%2Fnews-story%2F5927602b6b4ccefd086c32c922aa1eec&memtype=anonymous&mode=premium
+ Review of White, by Bret Easton Elils, "Bret Easton Ellis Steps into the World of Non-Fiction," Sydney Morning Herald, 7th June, 2019, https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/bret-easton-ellis-steps-into-the-world-of-non-fiction-20190531-p51t4u.html
+ Review of Not That Bad, edited by Roxanne Gay, The Newtown Review of Books, 13 Dec, 2018, https://newtownreviewofbooks.com.au/roxane-gay-editor-not-that-bad-dispatches-from-rape-culture-reviewed-by-justine-ettler/
+ "When I Met Kathy Acker," M/C Journal,vol. 21, no. 5, 2018, http://journal.media-culture.org.au/index.php/mcjournal/article/view/1483
+ Review of My Absolute Darling, by Gabriel Talent, The Sydney Morning Herald, 25 Nov, 2017, http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/my-absolute-darling-review-gabriel-tallents-disturbing-debut-novel-of-abuse-20171116-gzmq0r.html
+ The River Ophelia, 20 year anniversary reprint has been published and is available in digital and hardcopy editions. https://books.pronoun.com/the-river-ophelia/
+ "The Border: Travels to Communist Czechoslovakia," Griffith review, 2017, https://griffithreview.com/articles/the-border-travels-communist-czechoslovakia/
+ Review of Marlena, by Julie Buntin, The Newtown Review of Books, Sept, 2017, http://newtownreviewofbooks.com.au/2017/09/12/julie-buntin-marlena-reviewed-justine-ettler/
Interviews
+ Interview with Bill Holloway,https://theaustralianlegend.wordpress.com/2017/10/23/author-interview-justine-ettler/
+ Interview on Letsgetlocal, 2RRR, 2nd Nov 2017, https://www.letsgetlocal2rrr.com/show-02112017
+ Interview with Grab the Lapels, 23 Oct 2017, https://grabthelapels.com/2017/10/23/mtw-ettler/
Praise and Sales Information for Previous Titles
+ Bohemia Beach, Transit Lounge, 2018
“This is, most importantly, a novel that is impossible to put down. I read it twice in one night. But it is more than that. It is a political novel in many senses of that term. It makes a statement – but it does it with elegance, understatement and grace.” As. Prof. Cathy Lumby, launch speech for Bohemia Beach
“THERE once was a young woman who wrote a debut best-selling novel, married an aristocrat, made her fortune, lost it and now after more than 20 years — seemingly in the wilderness — Rushcutters Bay author Justine Ettler is back with a new book…
“Bohemia Beach was meticulously researched to the point where Ettler spent months at a time crashing in friends’ apartments in Prague and immersing herself in the culture — she even learned Czech.”
https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/newslocal/wentworth-courier/the-river-ophelia-author-justine-ettler-is-back-with-new-book-bohemia-beach/news-story/3fb5a279e9d99b13fc447579245268b2
“What makes this book so remarkable is that we so intimately follow Catherine’s thought processes…
In a sense the reader becomes Catherine, or at least identifies with her to the extent that reaching for a glass of wine while reading this book can engender a guilty conscience.
There are many great novels that feature alcoholics among their main characters. Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh and The Lost Weekend by Charles Jackson are among them. Bohemia Beach deserves to be on the same bookshelf as these.”
★★★★☆
http://publishing.artshub.com.au/news-article/reviews/writing-and-publishing/erich-mayer/review-bohemia-beach-by-justine-ettler-255507
“a fast-paced, almost madcap tale about a wildly careening woman and the violent men she is drawn to, with obsession and addiction driving much of the narrative and narration...
“Its wildness and energy are refreshingly offbeat, and unique in our contemporary fiction landscape.”
https://www.australianbookreview.com.au/abr-online/current-issue/4860-fiona-wright-reviews-bohemia-beach-by-justine-ettler
“It is not difficult to be at one with the protagonist in Bohemia Beach. As we become a part of her thought process, it’s easy to identify with Catherine Bell. We are with her every step of the way.
That is one of the facts that is amazing about this book from the best-selling author of The River Ophelia…
It’s true: Ettler is at ‘her provocative best’.”
https://psnews.com.au/2018/07/02/bohemia-beach/
“Channelling the Brontës, Milan Kundera and Amy Winehouse, Catherine drives with both hands off the wheel as she sucks you into her chaos. Justine Ettler’s first novel in over 2o years has a car-crash fascination as addictive as her protagonist’s booze habit”
travelinsider.qantas.com.au
file:///C:/Users/justi/Downloads/QTA0718_BOOKS-1.pdf
"Justine Ettler's best-seller, The River Ophelia, was published in 1995, followed closely by Marilyn's Almost Terminal New York Adventure. Twenty-two years later, she has produced her third novel, Bohemia Beach, and there are certainly similarities.
Bohemia Beach is also a pacy read about another young woman's almost terminal adventures in life, sex, art and romance; in addition, Ettler self-consciously frames her narrative in the context of other literary and philosophical tropes – here, Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights and Freud's notion of a primary trauma.
In a quasi-gothic ambience that swings, in drunken, semi-amnesiac haze, from a castle in Prague to storms at garret windows in England, the story of the troubled concert pianist Catherine Bell is literally ghosted by other characters, other lives and the return of only partially repressed stories from the past.”
https://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/books/bohemia-beach-review-justine-ettlers-novel-of-life-sex-art-and-romance-20180712-h12l14.html
+ The River Ophelia, Picador, 1995
‘sublime,’ The Mag
‘an impulsive, arousing and addictive read,’ Voice Works
‘Picador—renowned for scooping up the best of experimental fiction—is so sold on her talent that it signed her to an unprecedented—for an unpublished author—two book deal.’ The Weekend Australian
‘an electrifying cocktail of love, war and liberation,’ New Woman
‘With an intoxicating mix of tough sex, violence and ink black humour, Ettler sticks it to the reader, with scant regard for those who might be offended by her hard-boiled prose,’ Rolling Stone
Justine Ettler is ‘one of the acclaimed writers of Australian GritLit,’ Rip-Up Mag
Justine Ettler is ‘a terrific story-teller,’ Voice Works
Justine Ettler maybe ‘Sydney’s Empress of Grunge,’ Writing and Journalism
‘The River Ophelia places Ettler as a strong contemporary of female novelists working in the dark world of transgressive fiction. Significantly, with this novel she leaps beyond the nationalistic boundaries of Australia, her writing is best compared to Mary Gaitskill, Tama Janowitz or, at times, Kathy Acker.’ Ariel View
Testimonials:
‘The most exciting moment of my career was reading Justine’s manuscript [of The River Ophelia],’ says literary agent, Jill Hickson, Hickson Associates, Vogue
‘It’s almost as if Justine is establishing a new genre for women with this book… we knew we had a hot property with her,’ says publisher, Nikki Christer
‘The hottest new Picador for 1995,’ Jeanine Fowler, Picador publicist
Comparisons:
Compared to Helen Garner’s Monkey Grip, Henry Miller, William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, the Marquis de Sade, Kathy Acker, Tama Janowitz, Mary Gaitskill and Bret Easton Ellis
Prizes:
Won best cover design Australian Book Publisher’s Association, 1995
+ Marilyn’s Almost Terminal New York Adventure, Picador, 1996
‘It [Marilyn] titillates, teases and bamboozles from beginning to end. It’s a pepped-up punctuation-less prose-o-rama, zipping from page to page in a glorious onslaught of Hollywood glitz—this is Marilyn as you’ve never seen her before: alive, accident-prone and totally confused.’ The Sunday Age
‘a modern fairy-tale,’ The Age
‘shuns realism in favour of a surreal, comically paranoid world in which Marilyn is Australian and lost in New York where she is trying to find the man who might cure her TV allergy. Her adventures are related with the barmy zest of an R-rated cartoon,’ The Big Issue
‘Tumbling, rushing and spilling off the page… Ettler has constructed a mythical urban adventure peopled with archetypes. Marilyn is a female Don Quixote; her Sancho Panza is in the guise of the feminist heroine, Virginia Woolf… In a literary sense, Marilyn is the bastard child of the rollicking bawdy romp and John Travolta-style journalism: a cool, ironic tone that smiles, obsesses and notes but never gets involved.’ The Sydney Morning Herald
‘has unmistakeable echoes of 1980s New York novels such as Bright Lights, Big City, and Slaves of New York,’ The Australian
Comparisons:
Compared to Don Quixote, Thomas Pynchon, Kurt Vonnegut, Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, Tom Jones, Thelma and Louise, Jay McInerney’s Bright Lights, Big City, and Tama Janowitz’s Slaves of New York
Special Listings:
Justine Ettler was rated No. 17 in ‘Who’s Who,’ of 1996, Elle
Marilyn made ‘What’s hot in 1996’ The Australian Magazine
+ Marilyn’s Beinah Todlicher Trip Nach New York, was published by Rowohlt Paperback, in Hamburg, Germany, 1999.
Documentaries about Justine Ettler:
Justine featured in the ABC TV documentary, ‘Bohemian Rhapsody: Rebels in Australian Culture.’ 1997
Justine Ettler was born in Sydney. She completed an MA in writing at UTS on a scholarship in 1990, won an APRA scholarship in 1991 and completed her PhD in American Literature, Feminism and Media Studies at the University of Sydney in 2013 which is available online at: http://ses.library.usyd.edu.au/bitstream/2123/10020/1/J_Ettler_Thesis.pd.
Justine’s second novel, The River Ophelia, (Picador, 1995) was an instant best-seller in Australia and New Zealand. It is available now in a new edition which includes a previously unpublished Author's Note as well as an account of the original media controversy. https://books.pronoun.com/the-river-ophelia/ It won the best cover award in 1995 and was shortlisted for the Aurealis Award for Best Horror Novel in 1995. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurealis_Award_for_best_horror_novel. Justine's first novel, Marilyn’s Almost Terminal New York Adventure, (Picador) was published the following year to critical acclaim. As noted by Murray Waldren in The Weekend Australian, Justine made Australian literary history by being the first female debut writer to sell two books to a mainstream publisher.
In 1997 Justine was selected as one of six Australian authors to tour the UK as part of the New Images Writer’s Tour, and subsequently moved to London where she lived until 2007. During her time in the UK, she wrote a business plan for internet start-up company Deckchair.com (Sir Bob Geldof later became a board member), worked as a book reviewer at The Observer, The Evening Standard, and The Times Literary Supplement, lectured in Creative Writing, and worked as a reader for the London literary agency, Cornerstones, as well as for The Literary Consultancy. In 2005 she won a grant from the Arts Council of England for her third novel. During this time, Justine enjoyed many lengthy visits to Prague, and attended Czech literature seminars at SSEES, the University of London, and studied Czech at the Czech Centre.
Justine has worked as a university lecturer, a freelance journalist, a freelance reader/editor, a business writer and as a bookseller, among other things. Her fictional work has been widely published in anthologies.
In addition to her career as an author, Justine is an accomplished musician. Performing as a flautist at the Sydney Opera House while in her teens, Justine also taught flute at Sydney Girls High, and has accompanied members of the Australian band, The Go-Betweens.
Recent Book Publications
+ Bohemia Beach, Transit Lounge, 2018
Recent Publications
+ "From Paris With Panic," by Justine Ettler, The Weekend Australian, 24 Apr, 2020, https://www.theaustralian.com.au/subscribe/news/1/?sourceCode=TAWEB_WRE170_a_GGL&dest=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theaustralian.com.au%2Farts%2Freview%2Fcoronavirus-from-paris-with-panic%2Fnews-story%2F5927602b6b4ccefd086c32c922aa1eec&memtype=anonymous&mode=premium
+ Review of White, by Bret Easton Elils, "Bret Easton Ellis Steps into the World of Non-Fiction," Sydney Morning Herald, 7th June, 2019, https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/bret-easton-ellis-steps-into-the-world-of-non-fiction-20190531-p51t4u.html
+ Review of Not That Bad, edited by Roxanne Gay, The Newtown Review of Books, 13 Dec, 2018, https://newtownreviewofbooks.com.au/roxane-gay-editor-not-that-bad-dispatches-from-rape-culture-reviewed-by-justine-ettler/
+ "When I Met Kathy Acker," M/C Journal,vol. 21, no. 5, 2018, http://journal.media-culture.org.au/index.php/mcjournal/article/view/1483
+ Review of My Absolute Darling, by Gabriel Talent, The Sydney Morning Herald, 25 Nov, 2017, http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/my-absolute-darling-review-gabriel-tallents-disturbing-debut-novel-of-abuse-20171116-gzmq0r.html
+ The River Ophelia, 20 year anniversary reprint has been published and is available in digital and hardcopy editions. https://books.pronoun.com/the-river-ophelia/
+ "The Border: Travels to Communist Czechoslovakia," Griffith review, 2017, https://griffithreview.com/articles/the-border-travels-communist-czechoslovakia/
+ Review of Marlena, by Julie Buntin, The Newtown Review of Books, Sept, 2017, http://newtownreviewofbooks.com.au/2017/09/12/julie-buntin-marlena-reviewed-justine-ettler/
Interviews
+ Interview with Bill Holloway,https://theaustralianlegend.wordpress.com/2017/10/23/author-interview-justine-ettler/
+ Interview on Letsgetlocal, 2RRR, 2nd Nov 2017, https://www.letsgetlocal2rrr.com/show-02112017
+ Interview with Grab the Lapels, 23 Oct 2017, https://grabthelapels.com/2017/10/23/mtw-ettler/
Praise and Sales Information for Previous Titles
+ Bohemia Beach, Transit Lounge, 2018
- Shortlisted top 100 Books by Women 2018
“This is, most importantly, a novel that is impossible to put down. I read it twice in one night. But it is more than that. It is a political novel in many senses of that term. It makes a statement – but it does it with elegance, understatement and grace.” As. Prof. Cathy Lumby, launch speech for Bohemia Beach
“THERE once was a young woman who wrote a debut best-selling novel, married an aristocrat, made her fortune, lost it and now after more than 20 years — seemingly in the wilderness — Rushcutters Bay author Justine Ettler is back with a new book…
“Bohemia Beach was meticulously researched to the point where Ettler spent months at a time crashing in friends’ apartments in Prague and immersing herself in the culture — she even learned Czech.”
https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/newslocal/wentworth-courier/the-river-ophelia-author-justine-ettler-is-back-with-new-book-bohemia-beach/news-story/3fb5a279e9d99b13fc447579245268b2
“What makes this book so remarkable is that we so intimately follow Catherine’s thought processes…
In a sense the reader becomes Catherine, or at least identifies with her to the extent that reaching for a glass of wine while reading this book can engender a guilty conscience.
There are many great novels that feature alcoholics among their main characters. Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh and The Lost Weekend by Charles Jackson are among them. Bohemia Beach deserves to be on the same bookshelf as these.”
★★★★☆
http://publishing.artshub.com.au/news-article/reviews/writing-and-publishing/erich-mayer/review-bohemia-beach-by-justine-ettler-255507
“a fast-paced, almost madcap tale about a wildly careening woman and the violent men she is drawn to, with obsession and addiction driving much of the narrative and narration...
“Its wildness and energy are refreshingly offbeat, and unique in our contemporary fiction landscape.”
https://www.australianbookreview.com.au/abr-online/current-issue/4860-fiona-wright-reviews-bohemia-beach-by-justine-ettler
“It is not difficult to be at one with the protagonist in Bohemia Beach. As we become a part of her thought process, it’s easy to identify with Catherine Bell. We are with her every step of the way.
That is one of the facts that is amazing about this book from the best-selling author of The River Ophelia…
It’s true: Ettler is at ‘her provocative best’.”
https://psnews.com.au/2018/07/02/bohemia-beach/
“Channelling the Brontës, Milan Kundera and Amy Winehouse, Catherine drives with both hands off the wheel as she sucks you into her chaos. Justine Ettler’s first novel in over 2o years has a car-crash fascination as addictive as her protagonist’s booze habit”
travelinsider.qantas.com.au
file:///C:/Users/justi/Downloads/QTA0718_BOOKS-1.pdf
"Justine Ettler's best-seller, The River Ophelia, was published in 1995, followed closely by Marilyn's Almost Terminal New York Adventure. Twenty-two years later, she has produced her third novel, Bohemia Beach, and there are certainly similarities.
Bohemia Beach is also a pacy read about another young woman's almost terminal adventures in life, sex, art and romance; in addition, Ettler self-consciously frames her narrative in the context of other literary and philosophical tropes – here, Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights and Freud's notion of a primary trauma.
In a quasi-gothic ambience that swings, in drunken, semi-amnesiac haze, from a castle in Prague to storms at garret windows in England, the story of the troubled concert pianist Catherine Bell is literally ghosted by other characters, other lives and the return of only partially repressed stories from the past.”
https://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/books/bohemia-beach-review-justine-ettlers-novel-of-life-sex-art-and-romance-20180712-h12l14.html
+ The River Ophelia, Picador, 1995
- Best-seller, selling 50,000 copies in Australia and New Zealand
- Started the Australian literary movement called Grunge
- Justine owns the rights
‘sublime,’ The Mag
‘an impulsive, arousing and addictive read,’ Voice Works
‘Picador—renowned for scooping up the best of experimental fiction—is so sold on her talent that it signed her to an unprecedented—for an unpublished author—two book deal.’ The Weekend Australian
‘an electrifying cocktail of love, war and liberation,’ New Woman
‘With an intoxicating mix of tough sex, violence and ink black humour, Ettler sticks it to the reader, with scant regard for those who might be offended by her hard-boiled prose,’ Rolling Stone
Justine Ettler is ‘one of the acclaimed writers of Australian GritLit,’ Rip-Up Mag
Justine Ettler is ‘a terrific story-teller,’ Voice Works
Justine Ettler maybe ‘Sydney’s Empress of Grunge,’ Writing and Journalism
‘The River Ophelia places Ettler as a strong contemporary of female novelists working in the dark world of transgressive fiction. Significantly, with this novel she leaps beyond the nationalistic boundaries of Australia, her writing is best compared to Mary Gaitskill, Tama Janowitz or, at times, Kathy Acker.’ Ariel View
Testimonials:
‘The most exciting moment of my career was reading Justine’s manuscript [of The River Ophelia],’ says literary agent, Jill Hickson, Hickson Associates, Vogue
‘It’s almost as if Justine is establishing a new genre for women with this book… we knew we had a hot property with her,’ says publisher, Nikki Christer
‘The hottest new Picador for 1995,’ Jeanine Fowler, Picador publicist
Comparisons:
Compared to Helen Garner’s Monkey Grip, Henry Miller, William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, the Marquis de Sade, Kathy Acker, Tama Janowitz, Mary Gaitskill and Bret Easton Ellis
Prizes:
Won best cover design Australian Book Publisher’s Association, 1995
+ Marilyn’s Almost Terminal New York Adventure, Picador, 1996
- Sold 8,000 copies in Australia and New Zealand
- Justine Ettler owns the rights
‘It [Marilyn] titillates, teases and bamboozles from beginning to end. It’s a pepped-up punctuation-less prose-o-rama, zipping from page to page in a glorious onslaught of Hollywood glitz—this is Marilyn as you’ve never seen her before: alive, accident-prone and totally confused.’ The Sunday Age
‘a modern fairy-tale,’ The Age
‘shuns realism in favour of a surreal, comically paranoid world in which Marilyn is Australian and lost in New York where she is trying to find the man who might cure her TV allergy. Her adventures are related with the barmy zest of an R-rated cartoon,’ The Big Issue
‘Tumbling, rushing and spilling off the page… Ettler has constructed a mythical urban adventure peopled with archetypes. Marilyn is a female Don Quixote; her Sancho Panza is in the guise of the feminist heroine, Virginia Woolf… In a literary sense, Marilyn is the bastard child of the rollicking bawdy romp and John Travolta-style journalism: a cool, ironic tone that smiles, obsesses and notes but never gets involved.’ The Sydney Morning Herald
‘has unmistakeable echoes of 1980s New York novels such as Bright Lights, Big City, and Slaves of New York,’ The Australian
Comparisons:
Compared to Don Quixote, Thomas Pynchon, Kurt Vonnegut, Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, Tom Jones, Thelma and Louise, Jay McInerney’s Bright Lights, Big City, and Tama Janowitz’s Slaves of New York
Special Listings:
Justine Ettler was rated No. 17 in ‘Who’s Who,’ of 1996, Elle
Marilyn made ‘What’s hot in 1996’ The Australian Magazine
+ Marilyn’s Beinah Todlicher Trip Nach New York, was published by Rowohlt Paperback, in Hamburg, Germany, 1999.
- Featured in Rowohlt’s new paperback imprint
Documentaries about Justine Ettler:
Justine featured in the ABC TV documentary, ‘Bohemian Rhapsody: Rebels in Australian Culture.’ 1997