Chelsea doesn’t attend school much any more. She is carer for her mother who is sinking further into depression after a trauma, and her Grandad who has slipped into full-blown dementia. Her father is long gone; others are shadowy memories intangible like dreams. Barely known ghosts make for strange company. Then a parcel arrives, and in it are questions about her mother and her past self, their shared histories, and the people and place from which they’ve run. The Earth Does Not Get Fat is a powerful and gut-wrenching debut about intense suffering and love, fierce, searing love. Child caregivers -- Fiction. | Teenage girls -- Fiction. | Depressed persons -- Family relationships -- Fiction. | Dementia -- Patients -- Fiction. | Domestic fiction. | Family secrets -- Fiction. | Mothers and daughters -- Fiction. | Dysfunctional families -- Fiction. | Australian fiction. | Australian