New Book

Will there be justice for Luke?

The Leaves, published by Spinifex Press, is a bittersweet meditation on motherhood and loss, on the power of female friendship, and the role of the state in perpetuating violence. The book raises larger questions about a society that is yet to take responsibility for its own historical crimes.

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Faith and Evelyn are close friends, neighbours, and single mothers of Luke and of Mitch – and both bear the scars of the trauma of colonisation and the Stolen Generations.

In vivid, poetic, devastating writing The Leaves takes the reader right into the perceptual world of its young protagonist, Luke. Jacqueline Rule’s debut novel confirms contemporary Australia’s institutions as they serve to stifle any chance a disadvantaged child might have, letting him down at every turn. Compelling and unforgettable. – Marcelle Freiman, poet and author of Spirit Level

Biography

Jacqueline Rule

Dr Jacqueline Rule is an Australian author who holds a PhD in English from the University of Sydney, a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in English from Goldsmiths College, University of London (International Programme) and a Bachelor of Laws from the University of Technology Sydney (UTS). She is the winner of the University of London’s 150th Anniversary Prize for academic achievement in English Literature.

Born in South Africa, Jacqueline has lived in Sydney for many years. She is admitted as a solicitor by the Supreme Court of New South Wales.
Jacqueline has worked in research (focusing on law and literature) and academic governance at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), as an academic tutor teaching literature at the University of Sydney and as a fiction reader for literary journals. Her PhD thesis focused on the intersections between literature and law, narrative ethics and interpretative practices and the representation of historical trauma through the form of the novel.
In addition, Jacqueline spent several years working in a legal organisation, supporting a specialist committee on youth detention in the criminal justice system.
The Leaves is her debut novel.

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Kafka spoke of literature as the ‘axe’ that can thaw ‘the frozen sea inside of us’. It is my hope that The Leaves might play a small role in advocating for a more empathetic and humane approach to how our society reforms young offenders.

Jacqueline Rule

The Leaves book launch

We acknowledge the Gadigal People of the Eora Nation, the Traditional Custodians of the land on which we live and work; and pay our respects to Elders past and present.