When I think of my hell days, I think of crime scenes. Familiar sites, made uncanny with violence.
In the fluorescent tedium of a call centre in 2018, acclaimed novelist Laura Elizabeth Woollett finds herself meticulously plotting her own death. Until her period arrives, and equilibrium with it. After years of dismissing these monthly turns, she’s diagnosed with premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD). Then, at 33, she falls pregnant and experiences a reprieve — but will it last?
Through case studies, interviews, extensive medical research, and forays into history, true crime, and algorithmic rabbit-holes, Woollett looks beyond herself to assemble a chorus of PMDD sufferers, along with dedicated scientists and clinicians. Navigating the impossible terrain between a potentially fatal disorder and treatments that can be almost as dangerous, Hell Days is a testament to the precarity and dignity of life as a periodically suicidal person in an often-brutal world.
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‘Lyrical, quietly compelling, and distinctive … An essential contribution to a long-overdue conversation about women’s health.’
" - Books+Publishing
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Praise for West Girls:
‘Laura Elizabeth Woollett demonstrates her mastery of the polyphonic novel in West Girls. The book, Woollett’s fourth, comprises eleven nimbly interwoven chapters that explore origin, agency, and delusion in a patriarchal society … The deft execution of this sprawling, interlocked narrative is due in large part to the author’s willingness to surrender her control. The result is a witty, thought-provoking novel.’
" - Australian Book Review
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Praise for The Love of a Bad Man:
‘Like Helen Garner, Laura Woollett is impelled to explore the darkest corners of the human heart, the savage cognitive distortions of love; to understand and empathise with the monstrous, rather than to instinctively recoil or judge … Woollett's pitch-perfect command of narrative voice, period, and psychology creates 12 tales to fascinate and unnerve.’
" - The Age
