Helen FitzGerald

Helen FitzGerald

Helen FitzGerald (born 1966 in Shepparton, Australia) is a bestselling novelist and screenwriter. Her debut novel, Dead Lovely, was published by Allen & Unwin in 2007, and The Exit in 2015 by Faber & Faber. Viral was released in 2016.

Background

She was raised in the country town of Kilmore, Victoria; the twelfth in a family of thirteen children. She studied English and History at the University of Melbourne, before later attending Glasgow University where she completed a Diploma and Masters in Social Work. She began writing while working as a criminal justice social worker, where for a period she worked with serious sex offenders in Glasgow's Barlinnie Prison. She quit this job for a time to focus solely on her writing career, before returning to the field part-time. She cites her experience as a social worker an inspiration in the subject matter of her writing.

Writing

FitzGerald began as a screenwriter, writing scripts for a series of educational children's dramas for BBC Scotland. However, she became frustrated with the industry when none of her subsequent screenplays were produced, and she turned to novel-writing. She states that the rules of screenwriting are very stringent, but that in having learned them she has improved as a writer.

Her books are mostly thrillers, though she herself has described her genre as "Domestic Noir", a term coined by her fellow author Julia Crouch.

Works

FitzGerald has written sixteen novels to date:

• Dead Lovely, published 2007
• The Devil's Staircase, published 2009
• My Last Confession, published 2009
• Bloody Women, published 2009
• Amelia O'Donohue is SO not a Virgin, published 2010
• The Donor, published 2011
• Hot Flush, published 2011
• The Duplicate, published 2012
• Deviant, published 2013
• The Cry, published 2013, The Cry was adapted as a BBC serial (2018) starring Jenna Colman and Ewen Leslie. [1]
• The Exit, published 2015
• Viral, published 2016
• Worst Case Scenario, 2019 [2]
• Ash Mountain, 2021
• Keep Her Sweet, 2022
• Halfway House, published 2023

Critical reaction

A few critics noted that FitzGerald's first book, while generally described as a crime novel, did not follow the traditional rules of the genre. They argued that it belonged to a different, more psychologically complex tradition, characterised by the dark humour and flawed anti-heroines of writers such as Tama Janowitz and Fay Weldon. Novelist Mark Abernethy wrote of FitzGerald: "She has managed to do what Fay Weldon did in The Life and Loves of a She-Devil, which is to find the joke in what appalls us." Australian critic Sally Murphy described the novel as compelling but hard to classify, with "elements of chick-lit mixed with ghastly scenes of murder and retribution", while Adelaide writer Cath Kenneally highlighted FitzGerald's technique of underpinning audacious and potentially shocking material – "working blue" – with "sociological acumen".

The Cry has received the widest critical acclaim of any of FitzGerald's novels to date, with Fitzgerald's friend Doug Johnstone from The Independent on Sunday stating: "Astonishingly good. It is utterly harrowing, completely plausible, constantly nerve-shredding ... It plays on the deepest, darkest fears of all parents about their children, and embeds that everyday terror in a plot so up-to-the-minute that you'll swear it's been lifted from the pages of a newspaper ... The Cry is a remarkable novel – its devastating power all the stronger for its realistic rendering. Brilliant stuff."

Nominations

FitzGerald has been nominated for several awards, including:

• 2010 Davitt Award for The Devil's Staircase
• 2010 Spinetingler Award for The Devil's Staircase
• 2012 Davitt Award for The Donor
• 2014 Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award for The Cry
• 2014 Davitt Award for The Cry
• 2020 Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award, shortlisted for Worst Case Scenario

External links

• Website
• http://orendabooks.co.uk/helen-fitzgerald/
• https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06nkddf