Mount Pleasant

MOUNT PLEASANT
By Adam Byatt

Publication date: 6/2/21
Genre: Literary Fiction
Sub Genres: Suburban Realism/Short Story Collection
Paperback:  978-0-6486706-7-4
ePub: 978-0-6486706-3-6
Kindle ASIN: TBA
Pages: 80
Paperback: A$21.99
eBook: A$2.99

If you would like a signed copy of Mount Pleasant, follow the PayPal link
Austalia – $18AUD inc postage
Overseas – $23AUD inc postage
Please add your postal address in the NOTES section.

Mount Pleasant is a concept chapbook of 10 short stories based on the music of Solkyri.

Solkyri are a Sydney-based instrumental post-rock band, and Mount Pleasant is their fourth album, released in February 2020.

Mount Pleasant is inhabited by individuals who experience joy and laughter, doubt and confusion, fear and uncertainty, revelation and resurrection. These stories invite us to reflect on who we are now and ask us to investigate ourselves in relation to the pasts that may or may not have shaped us and the futures we wish to shape for ourselves.

“I am conscious of where I come from and the sadness that grows inside of me. I am curious to know what it means and what it makes me.”

In a Western Sydney suburb that no longer exists, its name erased and replaced with another, a façade is created to mask the truth of its existence.

Behind it is…

a girl who runs
a young woman dreaming beyond her uniform
a boy cycling through his family line
a girl who yearns for metamorphosis
a young man playing with polarities
a father who has lost himself
a young man decaying under the summer sun a man’s apology
a woman who longs to be seen

When the viciousness of hope is a powerful drug,
the inescapability of hopelessness is even more devasting.

Ben Hobson, author of To Become A Whale and Snake Island said, “Profound slices of human truth. There is such a clarity in character, and a precision in a lived experience of Australia within these stories. Adam’s skill is in making us remember those small moments in our lives that mean so much to us. Read this to engage your heart.”

Steve Zettler – “A wonderfully engaging chapbook from a gifted writer. Adam transforms the music of Solkyri’s Mount Pleasant album into heartfelt, and heartbreaking, portraits of struggling suburban Australia. In each vignette he beautifully exposes the pain, the love, the expectations and desires of a diverse palette of richly drawn characters. A clean, crisp work from beginning to end; and a book American readers should look into for a vivid vision of Down Under.”

Cameron Trost – Adam set out, in Mount Pleasant, to offer the reader an Australian chapbook of suburban realism in which the snippets of lives on display are communicated through beautifully sculpted prose, are relatable, and evoke a sense of nostalgia. He achieved his aim with flying colours. He delivered the goods. As an Aussie now living overseas, this book really touched me, taking me on a journey back through time and space to another world where I rode my bike through quiet streets (remember those?), climbed mulberry trees, and felt the first butterflies of romance. Our clothes were cheap and from K-Mart or Lowes, and indulging in fish’n’chips was one of life’s simple luxuries. It wasn’t all roses for everyone, of course. The struggles of working-class life shaped the individual’s psyche, restrictively defined gender roles, and put an expiry date on innocence. That’s all part of the story of Mount Pleasant…of our Mount Pleasants. Get on ya bike and go for a spin!

Available from:

Amazon (AUS)
Amazon (US) – link forthcoming
Amazon (UK)
Kindle – link forthcoming
Book Depository
Barnes and Noble