Casting light on the loss of those who have been silenced
Growing up in Redcliffe, Mandy Beaumont’s mum sparked her interest in true crime that turned into a love of crime fiction, with her new novel tracking down a serial killer.
When I ask Mandy Beaumont where her love of language began, she transports me to her childhood home in Redcliffe in the 1980s.
“My father had a big influence on that,” Beaumont says. “He was a typesetter for many, many years. He would bring home the old metal typeset things. And I would sit under the table and make poems and little lines out of them.”
Beaumont has been assembling poetry and stories in surprising and startling ways ever since. Her latest book, The Thrill of It, is released this week by Hachette Australia, with the Brisbane launch to be held at Avid Reader next month.
In some ways, the project is a departure for Beaumont, given it’s her first work of crime fiction. In another sense, it’s a homecoming.
“I was brought up with a mother obsessed with true crime,” she says. “The book is dedicated to her, because we talk about serial killers all the time. And I became really obsessed I suppose. I’m the person you want to take to trivia night if they ask true crime questions.”
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The Thrill of It is a novel powered by the real-life murders of six elderly women in Sydney across 1989–90, and the cold case of legendary designer and artist Florence Broadhurst, who was born at Mt Perry near Bundaberg. The story focuses on Emmerson Kerr, a young woman who seeks to solve the murder of her grandmother Marlowe (a character inspired by Broadhurst). The killer is deliberately not named in the book.
“I hope it gives voice to older women,” Beaumont says. “As I age, I’m really interested in why we become silenced. And I really wanted to make complex characters on the page, because so often in crime you don’t see complex characters, especially women.”
Despite her bookish childhood, Beaumont struggled with the structure and discipline of school and dropped out before moving out of home while still a teenager. A few years later, she enrolled in what was then Hendra Secondary College as a mature-aged student, where an English teacher nurtured her storytelling talent. Beaumont chose to study social science at QUT, where she found opportunities to write for student publications.
During her 20s and 30s Beaumont’s writing was plastered across Brisbane – literally. Embracing a DIY aesthetic, she printed her poetry on stickers and undertook a guerrilla campaign to leave them in nightclub bathrooms and other unlikely places. She also produced and hosted independent spoken word and poetry events, collaborating with like-minded Brisbane performers including Leah Shelton and Amanda-Lyn Pearson.
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“I wanted to chuck words out in places that you don’t traditionally find them, because I’ve never found myself in traditional places,” she says.
Eventually, Beaumont decided to return to QUT to complete her masters in creative writing. Her research component examined the work of Charles Bukowski, one of her muses. By her own estimation, the creative manuscript she produced, inspired by her favourite author Andrew McGahan, wasn’t quite ready.
“It got sent out to a few publishers, and to be frank, it just wasn’t good,” she says. “The writing was good, but the structure wasn’t. I didn’t have a voice on the page.”
Beaumont continued to write poetry and short stories, winning numerous competitions. Her big break came in 2018 when she entered a manuscript of short stories in The Richell Prize, one of the nation’s most prestigious awards for emerging authors. She was shortlisted and received a two-book deal. Wild, Fearless Chests was published in 2020, with her first novel, The Furies, released in 2022. The Furies formed part of her PhD at RMIT and was longlisted for the Stella Prize.
Beaumont’s family has been shaped by tragedy, and she does not shy away from depicting violence in her work.
“My nephew was murdered,” she says. “My auntie took an overdose of pills. My uncle died an alcoholic. Some bad stuff’s happened to me, inevitably, as a woman. So I feel like violence and grief always sits under my skin.”
Beaumont credits Charles Bukowski for teaching her how to find the “silver thread” that glitters among the gory and gruesome.
“I reckon that’s where good writing happens,” she says. “That’s been a huge influence on me – that silver thread through the light in the darkness. The really horrendous with the really beautiful is such a nice space in which to create new meaning.”
The Thrill of It by Mandy Beaumont, Hachette Australia, $32.99. Mandy launches The Thrill of It in conversation with Matthew Condon at Avid Reader on March 21.