The Boy Who Loved Dolls
An abduction…a series of interviews…an investigation with unthinkable outcomes.
Contemporary Gothic at its most inventive: at times, a psychological drama; at times, a tragedy embodying the grotesque and the horrific.
The Boy Who Loved Dolls is set in 1987 Australia, mainly at the renowned (and reclusive) French film director, Jean-Jacques Baille’s secluded country residence. Susan Vaughan, an eccentric young film critic and independent documentary-maker, is granted a once-in-a-lifetime chance to conduct a series of video-taped interviews staying with her long-term ‘cultural icon’. Unknown to her she learns that he is also an obsessive collector and restorer of rare and, at times, unnerving dolls.
What starts out as an in-depth investigation into the themes, techniques and patterns within his ground-breaking work – many featuring his Australian-born wife Anna – and a probing dissection of his most recent semi-biographical film – slowly turns into a cat-and-mouse game in which we find Baille is leading Susan towards his hidden past and the truth behind his wife’s disappearance.
'I don’t know why [Scott] is not numbered up there with the Flanagans and Careys, because, like them, he writes across a number of genres and takes risks. And like them, he keeps me coming back for more.' – Janine Rizzetti, residentjudge.com
John A. Scott, as twice winner of the Victorian Premier’s Prize...'twice shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award place[s] his work among the cream of Australia’s literary talent'. – The Orphic Journey of John A. Scott, Peter D. Mathews.
John A. Scott is the author of eighteen books, several of which have been translated and published internationally. In Australia, they have received numerous shortlistings (twice for the Miles Franklin), and received Victorian Premier’s Prizes for both poetry and fiction. The film version of his novel What I Have Written – directed by John Hughes, from the AWGIE-winning screenplay by Scott – was selected for Competition at Berlin and Stockholm Film Festivals and won the International Mystery Film Festival, Bologna. His major experimental novel, N, was shortlisted for the Victorian Premier's Prize and was one of the Guardian's Books of the Year. His most recent work, Shorter Lives (Puncher & Wattmann, 2020), is a collection of nonfiction sonnets and prose poems resurrecting a project abandoned in 1967. Shortlisted for the 2021 Prime Minister’s Award for Poetry. A 240 page study of his work by Peter D. Mathews – From Poet to Novelist: The Orphic Journey Of John A. Scott – was released last year from Cambria Press, New York.
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