Lily Bragge, performer and arts writer, has had what you might call a dramatic life, the sort that makes people say, ‘You should write a book’. It involves almost every kind of catastrophe that may befall a young woman in suburban Australia: sexual abuse, parental violence, emotional instability, depression, drug addiction, ill-fated romances, unexpected pregnancy, cancer, bereavement, domestic violence, loss of custody, suicide attempts, a great deal of partying and … well, you get the idea. In My Dirty Shiny Life, her first book, Bragge tells in braggadocio style the troubling and fulsome tale of a life lived far beyond the limits of ordinary endurance, one that makes for a riveting but disorienting read.