Understory

'a controlled and literate work that earns its emotional peaks' - Saturday Paper

'a delight' - The Australian


A memoir about staying in one place, told through trees, by the award-winning author of MR WIGG, NEST and WHERE THE TREES WERE.

"The understorey is where I live, alongside these plants and creatures. I tend the forest, stand at the foot of trees and look up, gather what has fallen."

This is the story of a tree-change, of escaping suburban Brisbane for a cottage on ten acres in search of a quiet life. Of establishing a writers retreat shortly before the Global Financial Crisis hit, and of losing just about everything when it did.

It is also the story of what the author found there: the beauty of nature and her own path as a writer. Understory is a memoir about staying in one place, told through trees, by the award-winning author of MR WIGG, NEST and WHERE THE TREES WERE.


'Something powerful ... takes hold of the reader and transports [you] to the forest floor in a kind of awe' - Sydney Morning Herald

'I love the way the reader gets lost in the trees and then lost in Inga's life and then lost in the trees again. Understory feels so rich and nourishing, as if the restorative power of the Australian bush is transmitted through her words.' - Richard Glover, bestselling author and radio presenter

'a fine addition to the genre of Australian nature writing' Books + Publishing

**Includes an extract from Simpson's next transporting novel, The Last Woman in the World**