Three Dollars [Paperback]

Eddie Harnovey is a good man living a small life. He works as an environmental consultant in Melbourne, loves his wife Tanya, adores his daughter Abby — and he's broke. Not destitute, just perpetually three dollars away from comfortable. When an old flame reappears and his job goes south, Eddie's carefully maintained dignity starts to crack. Elliot Perlman's debut novel is a quiet gut-punch about what happens when doing the right thing doesn't pay the rent. It's tender without being soft, angry without shouting, and it captures the slow-burn anxiety of financial precariousness with startling precision. Winner of the 1998 Age Book of the Year, this is Australian literary realism at its most humane. For readers who loved *The Slap* or anyone who's ever checked their bank balance twice before buying coffee.