The Journey to Purlieu

It was 2004 and I was on a school art excursion at the Queensland Art Gallery. I had a few friends with me, but I didn’t feel like talking much. I just wanted to do my work and be left to my own devices. Off they paraded around the gallery, making the most of the bludge school day, whilst I stared at paintings, allowing my mind to wander. It settled upon an image in my minds eye of a young man’s face poking his head into the room, captivated by me, the heroine of my own fantasy.

There began the first spark of Purlieu. The heroine became Evelyn, a lonely, discarded teenage girl, aching for love and adventure. When this young man invited her away from the sorrows of her life, she came utterly willingly.

There, in the days that followed, I stayed up late into the night, dreaming up their magical story of a land with strange creatures and magical powers, of potions and curses. I began to type out an outline, some scenes and dialogue, until eventually I was on my way to outlining the first draft, becoming the novelist I had aspired to be since primary school.

Five years on, I was on the other side of an abusive relationship and I felt a stirring in me to take the story on a different, darker, more realistic path. Fuelled by my own afflictions, and the woeful, emotion-filled prose I had written during that time, Purlieu transformed into a megaphone for truth: truth for all women out there suffering or who had suffered through an abusive relationship.

I stripped the story back, removing the enchanting creatures, magic, and whimsy and replaced it instead with a haunting fantasy thriller acting as a mirror to abusive relationships.

What the book has become, I wouldn’t say is to be enjoyed, but rather survived. It is not a whimsical fairytale. Purlieu is the shadow of a figure beneath a tree on a long, empty street. You may notice him or you may not.

It’s certainly come a long way from the fantasies of a fifteen-year old girl.