Something for the Pain: A Memoir of the Turf

'Unquestionably one of the most original writers working in Australia today.'—The Australian

'Murnane, a genius, is a worthy heir to Beckett.'—Teju Cole

'Something for the Pain is Gerald Murnane at his best. His meticulous exploration of his lifelong obsession with horse racing is by turns hilarious, moving and profound.'—Andy Griffiths

'Murnane recounts his life through his abiding obsession with horse racing. But you don’t have to care about horse racing—it’s the quality of the obsessed mind that matters.'—Ben Lerner in The New Yorker

'A writer of such precision and irony...'—Lorin Stein in Paris Review

‘A memoir of horse racing that speaks of triumphs and tragedies, of the infinite shades of friendship and romance, of the precision and persistence of memory, and – it its characteristically calm, direct prose as much as its contents – of virtue.’—Times Literary Supplement, Best of 2015

Growing up in the bush, Gerald Murnane became obsessed with horse racing. He had never ridden a horse, nor seen a race, and he had no interest in gambling. Yet he was entranced by the pictures in the Sporting Globe, the horses' racing colors, their names—the incantation of them in radio broadcasts of race commentary from towns near and far. Murnane discovered in these races more than he could find in religion or philosophy. They were the gateway to a world of imagination.

Murnane is like no other writer, and Something for the Pain is like no other Murnane book. In this unique and spellbinding memoir, he tells the story of his life through the lens of horse racing. It is candid, witty and moving—a treat for lovers of literature and of the turf.

Gerald Murnane was born in Melbourne in 1939. His acclaimed debut novel, Tamarisk Row, was published in 1974 and was followed by nine other works of fiction, the most recent of which is A Million Windows. In 1999 Murnane won the Patrick White Award and in 2009 he won the Melbourne Prize for Literature.