Brian Matthews' Louisa moves with the pace of a thriller, building an unforgettable portrait of Louisa Lawson - publisher, journalist, poet, inventor, women's rights agitator, mother of Henry Lawson. Winner of the New South Wales Premier's Award, the Victorian Premier's Award, and the Australian Literature Society Gold Medal, and co-winner of the John Hetherington Bicentennial Biography Prize, Louisa undermines all the certainties of biographical narrative, deftly drawing the reader into the whole strange business of one person unravelling the life of another.