Eleven Letters to You

‘A quietly ecstatic work of memory—intense, witty and beautiful.’ * Helen Garner *
‘A rare feat of imagination and memory, written with grace and humour, irony and controlled anger, summoning the encounters that gave Helen Elliott treasures of human knowledge and surprises of self-awareness.’ * Brenda Niall *
‘A deeply evocative memoir, with the humanity of A. B. Facey’s classic, A Fortunate Life, written on the little piece of ivory favoured by Jane Austen.’ * Louise Adler *
‘A wise, erudite and charming book, steeped in love.’ * Travel Insider *
‘I read it in one sitting—I could not put it down. [It’s] warm and generous…both moving and very thoughtful. It made me think about life stories and how we tell them…Very powerful.’ * Kate Evans, RN Breakfast *
‘A rather unusual and special memoir by one of Australia’s finest literary critics…A lovely reminder that we do not ever get anywhere, or learn anything entirely on our own…Bravo, Helen.’ * Australian *
‘An intelligent, critical, utterly engaging exploration of a life; a memoir that is willing to look at pain and regret as well as joy.’ * Kate Evans, ABC Arts *
‘Here we have a memoir that could be a marvellous epistolary novel. Elliott’s Eleven Letters to You teeters over the boundaries of novel and memoir again and again….It’s tempting to keep quoting from Eleven Letters because the writing is so unusually good. The vividness, the sheer liveliness is a feast that makes you want to keep going back and tasting it again. More than that, it is a vibrant and critical history of the past 70 years…I wouldn’t be surprised if it won awards.’ * Age *
‘Endearing, emotional and often epiphanous…With crackling prose and a vividness that illuminates even the remotest of memories, this memoir pays tribute to those forgotten figures who light the runway into adulthood.’ * Saturday Paper *
‘Intimate and generous.’ * Sian Cain, Guardian *
‘The exuberance of the writing process filters through to the finished pages…This memoir is a remarkable celebration of the permeability of individual lives in the face of historical change.’ * Australian Book Review *
‘Intimate, innovative.’ * West Australian *
‘Delightful.’ * Mercury *
‘This book is a work of crafted beauty and grace. It is a balm to return to it each day for a smack of goodness and heart. Thoroughly recommend for its writing and, if like me you are in need of, antidote to some of the current horrors going down.’ * Bernadette Brennan *
‘This lovely memoir by Elliott, a much-admired literary critic, examines periods of her life through letters to the people who shaped her when she was growing up in Australia’s burbs in the 1950s and 1960s. The neighbour who lent her the books that would change her life; the teacher who taught her about art; the attractive male boss who became “an instruction in both desire and decency”; and all the bold women who revealed to her how to live a life of one’s own. I keep thinking about this book—it is one to return to.’ * Sian Cain, Guardian *
‘Remarkable…an account of the friendship, truthfulness, decency of others.’ * ABC Radio National *

Helen Elliott is a prominent literary critic, and the editor of Grandmothers. Her writing has appeared in the Monthly, the Australian, the Age, Griffith Review and numerous other publications. She was the literary editor of the Herald Sun and has four granddaughters.

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