Nigel Featherstone
My Heart is a Little Wild Thing
“Epic in its intimacy... It’s a triumph of a book about the timeless theme of how romance can be obstructed by a suffocating mother.”
Ultimo Press, 2022
Blood is thicker than water, but the heart is a little wild thing that can’t be tamed.
The day after I tried to kill my mother, I tossed some clothes, a pair of hiking boots, a baseball cap and a few toiletries into my backpack, and left at dawn.
Patrick has always considered himself a good son. Willing to live his life to please his parents, his sense of duty paramount to his own desires and dreams. But as his mother’s health continues to deteriorate and his siblings remain absent, he finds the ties that bind him to his mother begin to chafe.
After an argument leads to a violent act he travels to a familiar country retreat to reflect on what his life could be – and through a chance encounter with a rare animal and an intriguing stranger starts to wonder if perhaps it is not too late to let his heart run wild.
A story about family, love and the cost of freedom, My Heart is a Little Wild Thing serves as a reminder that we all deserve to pursue our dreams.
Nigel Featherstone is an Australian writer who has been published widely. His works include the story collection Joy (2000), his debut novel Remnants (2005), and The Beach Volcano (2014), which is the third in a series of novellas. He wrote the libretto for The Weight of Light, a contemporary song cycle that had its world premiere in 2018. He has held residencies at Varuna (Blue Mountains), Bundanon (Shoalhaven River), and UNSW Canberra at the Australian Defence Force Academy.
He lives on the Southern Tablelands of New South Wales.
