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Recreation

Luke Davies

Davies is an Australian poet and novelist who is best known for his first novel, Candy, a story of a couple caught up in drug addiction. It was faithfully filmed with the late Heath Ledger and Abbie Cornish as the couple and Geoffrey Rush as the wealthy businessman who looks out for them.

Candy was followed by another novel, Isabelle the navigator and now, in 2008, he had produced an extraordinary novel about Howard Hughes called God of speed. It is a lively and imaginative account of the man whose brilliance as an inventor and his affairs with seemingly every great beauty in Hollywood has given him an almost mythic status. The book roars along and watches as Hughes’s mind gradually unravels into the madness of his later years. If you’ve read biographies of Hughes and seen the Martin Scorsese film, you will find this colourful and idiosyncratic picture of one of the most colourful characters of the 20th century worth reading and it will be interesting to hear the author speak about the genesis of the book.

• Information about Luke Davies from the Festival website
• Search the library catalogue for books by Luke Davies