Tidelines

It's Sydney in the early 2000s, and Grub is spending the summer with her universally adored older brother, Elijah, and his magnetic but troubled best friend, Zed. Their days are filled with surfing, swimming and hanging out; life couldn't be better.

But years later, Elijah disappears and Grub's family unravels. At first, Grub blames Zed: he was the one who derailed Elijah from a bright future in the arts. But as Grub looks back at those dreamy summer days, the sanctuary of her certainty crumbles. Was Zed really responsible for her brother's disappearance? Was anyone?

Tidelines is a tender coming-of-age novel about growing up in the face of unimaginable loss. It examines the stories we subconsciously write for ourselves, and what remains later, when we have the courage to tear them apart.

'Beautifully conceived and written, Tidelines is about the faulty but inescapable ties of family and friendship.' - Debra Adelaide
'A tender and visceral story.' - Kristina Olsson

'I wanted to rave about the novel that I'm reading at the moment. I'm having a great time with Sarah Sasson's debut novel, Tidelines. It's about grief and loss and the stories we tell ourselves, and it's crazy talented for a first time effort.' Michael Williams, Read This Podcast

'Reading Sarah Sasson's debut novel, Tidelines, is a cold-water plunge: her use of immersive imagery and intertwining character arcs induce a long-lasting catharsis'. - Honi Soit

'Tidelines is a wonderful debut novel that weaves the author's medical and scientific knowledge with poetic prose and complex, flawed characters. Sasson is an author to watch.' - Other Terrain Journal

Sarah Sasson is a physician-writer living on Gadigal land in Sydney. She has spent time living overseas in Chicago, Singapore, Montreal, Hanoi and Oxford. In Australia, the UK and the USA, her poetry, short-fiction and creative non-fiction have been published in Meanjin, Medium, Oncology Republic, Grieve Anthology, Unsweetened, Intersection Stories and Orris Root, among other places. In 2021 Sarah edited Signs of Life-an anthology (MoshPit Publishing), a collection themed around first- and second-hand experiences of mental and physical illness, and of caregiving. Tidelines was shortlisted for the 2020 Varuna House Publisher Introduction Program and longlisted for the 2020 Queensland Writers' Centre Publishable Program under the title Some Things Beautiful. Sarah is currently living in Sydney with her husband and young children, and works as a clinician and scientist. When she is not writing, Sarah enjoys swimming, bushwalking, travel and spending time with family and friends.

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