Maguire, Emily 1976-

views updated

Maguire, Emily 1976-

PERSONAL:

Born 1976, in Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia. Education: B.A.; M.A.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Agent—Mulcahy and Viney Literary Agency, 15 Canning Passage, Kensington, London W8 5AA, England. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Journalist, writer, and educator. English teacher, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.

AWARDS, HONORS:

EDS Dylan Thomas Prize long list, 2006, Kathleen Mitchell Awards Special Commendation, both for Taming the Beast.

WRITINGS:

Taming the Beast (novel), Serpent's Tail (London, England), 2005, HarperPerennial (New York, NY), 2006.

The Gospel according to Luke (novel), Brandl & Schlesinger (Blackheath, New South Wales, Australia), 2006.

Contributor to periodicals, including the Observer, Sydney Morning Herald, and the Financial Review.

SIDELIGHTS:

Emily Maguire is an Australian writer and journalist whose first novel, Taming the Beast, tells the story of fourteen-year-old Sarah Clark. After being seduced by her thirty-eight-year-old English teacher Daniel Carr, Sarah eventually must face the end of the increasingly sadistic and addictive affair when Daniel takes a new job in another town. Sarah tries to assuage her insatiable appetite for sex wetted with violence by having affairs with numerous men before finally starting a relationship with Jamie, an old childhood friend. However, when Daniel comes back to town, Sarah—whose once promising academic future has faded due to her increasingly self-destructive proclivities such as taking drugs—once again submits herself to Daniel's sadistic sexual practices. A Publishers Weekly contributor wrote that the author "keeps the prose crackling and the dialogue lively … from the first page to the lost." Noting that "her writing manages to convey urgency," a Kirkus Reviews contributor called Taming the Beast "often powerful and compelling." Sarah Weinman, writing on the Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind Web site, noted: "This is the kind of novel that seizes you from the first lines and forces you through the worst kind of agony and hell before spitting you out, completely gobsmacked, utterly spent, yet hopelessly addicted."