New release

Soft Serve
by George Kemp

A gem of a debut novel by award-winning playwright George Kemp, about small-town lives and the search for genuine sustenance in a fast-food world.

A$29.99

(Paperback)

Available. Dispatched 2-3 business days

Overview

Stuck in a regional McDonald’s, as bushfires close in, three twenty-somethings and their dead friend’s mum all face a reckoning. Fern longs for Ethan, Ethan longs for Jacob, and Jacob struggles to long for anything. Meanwhile, Pat just wants her grief to ease up.

Soft Serve proves that small-town lives are huge, and that anyone can get stuck in limbo between their past and their hoped-for future. From celebrated playwright and actor George Kemp comes this charming and poignant novel: it’s drive-thru Chekhov … full of wit and heart.

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Favel Parrett

‘‘Full of spark and love, Soft Serve is fiercely tender and moving.’’

Benjamin Law

‘‘A scorching novel about small-town grief, queer yearning and the rituals that keep us connected. George Kemp’s debut is full of complicated humanity, dark laughs and endless compassion – and makes him one to watch.’’

Eleanor Limprecht

‘‘Soft Serve is an irresistible debut; it will thaw the hardest heart. George Kemp delivers a tale of first love, loss and the inexorable pain of growing up.’’

Heather Mitchell

‘‘This exquisite book grabbed my heart and held it long after it ended. Every character is drawn with the greatest affection, exploring the beauty and fragility of loss and love.’’

Hugh Mackay

‘'A new and glorious voice has arrived on the Australian literary scene – compelling, lyrical, evocative and utterly original.'’

'Soft Serve' by George Kemp

George Kemp

George Kemp is a writer based on Gadigal land in Sydney whose critically acclaimed debut novel, Soft Serve, was published in February 2026. He was selected to be part of the Faber Academy in 2023–2024, during which he completed the first draft of Soft Serve. He is a graduate of Charles Sturt University and has a Master’s from Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, London. George won the Australian Theatre for Young People Foundation Commission Award 2020 for his play Shack (published by Playlab). Since the premiere production in 2022, Shack has been performed frequently around the country and internationally. Shack is on the new 2026 NSW Drama Curriculum and is in the early stages of development for television. George's latest short story, 'Down Dog’, will appear in Griffith Review in early 2027.

George is also an experienced and passionate educator and mentor. He is currently Producer, New Writing & Artist Development at Australian Theatre for Young People, and has taught writing for the Faber Academy, Varuna and Writing NSW. He also previously had a successful career as an actor across Australia and England, in productions including Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead and Cyrano de Bergerac (Sydney Theatre Company), and national and international tours of The Play that Goes Wrong and Peter Pan Goes Wrong.