Shortlisted, Commonwealth Writers' Prize, Best First Book 2004 'Just getting on a plane made me want sex.' For Catherine travel is about many things other than getting from here to there. Cities, for instance, and what cities do to people; the perils of geography and the excuses people use to keep others at a distance. It is about loss and longing, and the possibility of escape. In the years after she first meets Michael in Los Angeles, it is mostly about obsessive desire and damage. Sophie Cunningham's first novel is a fearless evocation of a woman losing herself to the idea of love. It will remind you how easy it is to cross the line, and how hard it can be to get back. Sophie Cunningham is a former publisher and the author of two novels, Geography published in 2004, and Bird published in 2008. She is a former editor of Meanjin, and the the current Chair of the Literature Strategy Panel of the Australia Council. She was a founding member of the Stella Prize. textpublishing.com.au 'Geography is a new map of the heart from an author equipped with the latest global positioning system.' Weekend Australian 'Geography is a story for anyone who has ever been kept on a string by a lover and yet was too comfortable in their desire to be able to cut themselves free. A tragic but beautiful story...' West Australian 'lean pacy prose and pitch-perfect dialogue.' Aviva Tuffield, Sunday Age 'a first novel that is autobiographical, starkly erotic, full of some fine writing and a good read as well.' Jason Steger, Sunday Age 'genuinely erotic...a compelling journey through an intriguing interior landscape.' Sunday Telegraph 'Cunningham controversially encapsulates some of the many ambivalent complexities faced by contemporary women as they attempt the risky negotiations of feminism and heterosexuality...Her writing courageously depicts the unsanitised contents of an often contradictory female pleasure which feminism sometimes fails to accommodate or refuses to admit. Yet, with its universally relatable themes of lust, love, longing and betrayal, Geography will be appreciated by male and female readers alike...brave and refreshing' Australian Book Review 'Cunningham's story mirrors our prosperous and narcissistic era, in which, by and large, we have the time and resources to map our subconscious.' Sydney Morning Herald