SAYONARA BABY, a novel by Ruth Skilbeck

“A sensitive and convincing account of Australian youth culture.” – Kirkus Reviews

Sayonara Baby is a novel about Roxanne 'Roxy' Bergson’s life and experiences with one of Adelaide’s Art Scandals, a (fictional) group of artists, when she moves to the city to go to college. She documents her relationship with Raymond Furnett, who is an older art student, and friends, in stories, diary entries and letters. The action shifts as they travel to various cities and the rainforest and Roxy's family’s holiday shack in the foothills of the Snowy Mountains. It is an authentic and respectful portrait of the ways of life of young artists and writers in the turbulent years of punk in Australia in the early 1980s.

Publication details:

Title: Sayonara Baby

Author: Ruth Skilbeck

Format: Ebook-pdf

Publication date: 7 December 2021

Page count: 240 pp

ISBN: 9780645194104 (ebook) Available here for paid download

This edition was also published as a Kindle eBook ASIN: B09N9NXPVC (December 2021)

Cover photograph (of Ruth Skilbeck) by Liz Nijam Titterington

A record of this publication is held at the National Library of Australia.

This novel was first published in paperback in 2017, and has also been published under the title Cafe Life in the Antipodes.