Scarred

Warning:
High levels of physical and sexual violence.

There were five now. The mugger, the sex offender, the wife-beater, the drug-dealer. And of course, Peter. Jason hadn’t needed a gun to kill Peter.

Jason Ennis doesn't understand why the world is such a confusing place. Why it's so difficult to read between the lines, so hard to understand what people want, such a struggle to fit in. Not that he isn’t trying as he works a dead-end job and chips away at a degree that’s going nowhere. But good things come to those who wait. Sometimes, when he least expects it, he gets a chance to make a real difference. To make the world a better place. By removing someone else from it. Someone who doesn’t fit in with his standards of behaviour, someone who reminds him of how they scarred him as a child.

“Damien Linnane’s Scarred is a poignant thriller that speaks to the addictiveness of vengeance. Jason Ennis emerges from an abominable childhood into an adulthood that is light on human connection. It’s a powerful debut, both page-turner and tragic exploration of the mistakes the well-meaning make when they don’t know how to feel.” – Edward Wright, book reviewer

“… a brilliant fiction debut. There is never a dull moment in the 400-plus pages, written with street-smart thought patterns that make the characters come to life in Sydney as they blend in to the people-scape.”

– Jim Kellar, editor of the Newcastle Herald Weekender

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Click here to download the first two chapters.

Scarred was short-listed for the 2022 Adaptable Program, run by the Queensland Writers Centre.

Raw

A Memoir

Sample Chapter

Trigger warning:
Recollections of being a victim of child abuse.

Raw chronicles a childhood marred by physical, sexual and emotional abuse, and a man’s subsequent ineffective search for identity in gangs, the military, and dysfunctional relationships. The ongoing impacts of childhood trauma reach a climax when Damien firebombs the home of a man accused of rape. He subsequently becomes an artist and writer in prison.

Raw - A Memoir

“Childhood trauma. Unanswered cries for help. Coming to terms with sex, love and abuse. Damien Linnane’s memoir is written with the gritty truth of real life.”

– Jim Kellar, editor of the Newcastle Herald Weekender

Raw