The brilliant new short story collection from the Arthur C. Clarke Award–winning author of The Animals in That Country.A family of cat farmers gets the chance to set the felines free. A group of chickens tells it like it is. A female-crewed ship ploughs through the patriarchy. A support group finds solace in a world without men.With her trademark humour, energy, and flair, McKay offers glimpses of places where dreams subsume reality, where childhood restarts, where humans embrace their animal selves and animals talk like humans.The stories in Gunflower explode and bloom in mesmerising ways, showing the world both as it is and as it could be.

When the animals start talking, we're not ready for what we'll learn. Hard-drinking, foul-mouthed, and allergic to bullshit, Jean is not your usual grandma. She's never been good at getting on with other humans, apart from her beloved granddaughter, Kimberly. Instead, she surrounds herself with animals, working as a guide in an outback wildlife park. And although Jean talks to all her charges, she has a particular soft spot for a young dingo called Sue. Then one day, disturbing news arrives of a pandemic sweeping the country. This is no ordinary flu: its chief symptom is that its victims begin to understand the language of animals — first mammals, then birds and insects, too. But as the flu progresses, the unstoppable voices become overwhelming, and many people begin to lose their minds. When Jean's infected son, Lee, takes off with Kimberly, heading south, Jean feels the pull to follow her kin. Setting off on their trail, with Sue the dingo...

Shortlisted for the Glenda Adams Award for New Writing in the 2014 NSW Premier's Literary AwardsBeyond the killing fields and the temples of Angkor is Cambodia: a country with a genocidal past and a wide, open smile. A frontier land where anything is possible – at least for the tourists. In Holiday in Cambodia Laura Jean McKay explores the electric zone where local and foreign lives meet. There are tender, funny moments of tentative understanding, as well as devastating re-imaginings of a troubled history.Three backpackers board a train, ignoring the danger signs – and find themselves in the hands of the Khmer Rouge. Elderly sisters are visited by their vampire niece from Australia and set out to cure her. A singer creates a sensation in swinging 1969, on the eve of an American bombing campaign. These are bold and haunting stories by a remarkable new talent.'Each of these stories is like catching a snippet of a...