Iris by Fiona Kelly McGregor
About Kelly McGregor
Fiona Kelly McGregor has published eight books, most recently the photoessay A Novel Idea, and essay collection Buried Not Dead, which was shortlisted for the Victorian Premiers Literary Awards. Other books include short story collection Suck My Toes/Dirt which won the Steele Rudd Award, and the underground classic chemical palace. Her novel Indelible Ink won Age Book of the Year and was published in French translation by Actes-Sud. McGregor is also known for a substantial repertoire of performance art, which has been seen internationally. She has held residencies at Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris, Carriageworks, Sydney, and the BR Whiting Studio, Rome. When in Sydney, McGregor lives and works on Gadigal land. For further information, visit:
A Quote from Kelly McGregor
“It’s such an honour to be shortlisted for this award. History is so important. We don’t know who we are until we know what we’ve come from. Australia’s queer history has barely been represented in fiction; it has always been there, hidden, forbidden, yet intertwined with everybody’s history. It’s exciting to be alive at a time when we can finally exhume these relevant, urgent stories.”
About Iris
Who is Iris Webber?
A thief, a fighter, a wife, a lover.
A scammer, a schemer, a friend.
A musician, a worker, a big-hearted fool.
A woman who has prevailed against the toughest gangsters of the day, defying police time and again, yet is now trapped in a prison cell.
Guilty or innocent?
Rollicking through the underbelly of 1930s sly-grog Sydney, Iris is a dazzling literary achievement from one of Australia’s finest writers. Based on actual events and set in an era of cataclysmic change, here is a fierce, fascinating tale of a woman who couldn’t be held back.
A Qu0te from the Judging Panel
“In Iris, Fiona Kelly McGregor brings to vivid and complex life one of the most notorious figures of 1930s sly-grog Sydney, the petty criminal Iris Webber. Reputedly “the most violent woman in Sydney”, the Webber who McGregor reclaims and reimagines from the gaps in the historical record surfaces as a resourceful woman blazing with life. A real person emerges from the near-mythical tabloid portraits of her as a gun-slinging lesbian gangster. It’s a testament to McGregor’s skill throughout that Iris remains an actor, not a victim, and that in this world of poverty and crime, bawdy joyous tenderness survives.”
“The world-building is exceptional, textured, replete. In McGregor’s hands, Iris is a brilliant observer and chronicler of the interactions, sounds and rollicking vernacular of her world. Language expresses politics, and class, tribal and cultural affiliations, including queer culture. The novel is a remarkable act of documentation – reclamation of a time, place and its people. In it, McGregor gives voice to the forgotten, subverting the history told by people in power, and reminding us to remember people on the margins.”
“Like the best of historical fiction, Iris reaches into the present too. It asks, What happens to a person without education, family support and social welfare? As Australia grapples with a cost-of-living crisis, increasing housing precarity, and violence against marginalised groups, Iris and its rich cast of characters are stark and timely reminders to us all.”
“Picaresque, exhilarating and revelatory, Iris is a stunning achievement.”
