What is it about sorrow and grief that brings people together?

On Wednesday - or is it Thursday? - there is a tap at her back door and there stands Tasmin, looking calm but tired, with faded yellow bruises still visible on her chin and one cheekbone. As she welcomes her up the back step and into the kitchen, Fairy is momentarily distracted by the rush of uncomplicated joy of realisation and optimism, that floods her body and makes her limbs feel light.

Tasmin is a young woman facing her own demise, urged into unspeakable action by a kindly neighbour, and from her pain rises the personal stories of an eclectic cast of unlikely characters.

Perhaps it is because the world has gone mad. Perhaps it is because Tasmin feels this will all end soon, one way or another, but she and the others are drawn together in a way none of them could have foreseen.

The Clothesline is the debut novel of Australian writer Krista Schade, exploring the fractured dynamics of family life, the dear friends who become family, and the search for hope.