The Outrageous Good Fortune of Living

My new nonfiction book, out on 30 June 2026!

Spirituality is not exclusive. It’s for everyone. Whether you’re wearing a cross, a hijab or nothing at all, we all search for meaning. But how do we find it? And how can we build a world that embraces all paths to the divine however we define it and however we live it?

The Outrageous Good Fortune of Living is a guide for the curious, the questioning, the grateful and the hopeful, exploring how life itself can be sacred, wild and extraordinary – no matter who you praise or whether you praise no one at all.

Praise for Outrageous:

‘If at some stage you have an existential crisis or shake-up, worried about the Meaning of Life, wondering how to fill the hole where your soul would be if you believed you had one, reach immediately for this spiritual first-aid kit’ Caroline Baum, journalist, broadcaster and author of Only

Both breezy and intellectual at the same time, this is a generous, gorgeous and practical guide to unearthing your own flavour of spirituality in our modern, troubled era. Moving beyond the constraints of religion, Bailey nonetheless respects the treasured wisdoms of some of history’s most enlightened thinkers, exploding boundless hope onto the page. It’s the kind of book you’ll want to come home to again and again; easy-reading and moreish’, Cadance Bell, screenwriter, filmmaker and author

‘Jackie Bailey’s book is part memoir, part treatise on how to live, all heart. Through reflections on her lived experience with religion, family tragedy, parenthood, and her work as an inter-faith minister and funeral celebrant, Jackie offers us something invaluable at a time in which even the most resourced, resilient and confident person can feel lost and overwhelmed – a guide on how to live a life that is meaningful, compassionate and courageous’, Dr Rebecca Huntley, social researcher and author, Sassafras: A memoir of love, loss and MDMA therapy

‘The simple truth about The Outrageous Good Fortune of Living is that this is an outrageously good book. Erudite, compassionate, funny, and satisfying both artistically and philosophically. Jackie Bailey, the most reverent of non-believers you’d ever meet, wrote an utterly unsentimental ode to beauty and longing, a (not so divine) comedy of looking for salvation in a godless world. Drawing on ancient and scientific wisdoms, she advocates for a meaningful life infused with gratitude and empathy. Even in our turbulent times this book will leave you calmer, and inspired’ Lee Kofman, author of The Writer Laid Bare

‘Jackie Bailey has crafted a story of coming home. It is drawn from tough experience, intellectual rigour, openness, acceptance and humour; from a yearning that drove her toward the best kind of questing and questioning’, Ailsa Piper, director, performer and author of For Life

‘So beautifully written – so personal – and so compelling. This book will help lots of people’, Warren Ward, associate professor of psychiatry and author of Lovers of Philosophy

The Eulogy

The Eulogy is a literary page-turner from new Australian voice Jackie Bailey – a story about family, death and grief that is full of love, humour and life.

It’s winter in Logan, south-east Queensland, and still warm enough to sleep in a car at night if you have nowhere else to go. But Kathy can’t sleep. Her husband is on her blocked caller list and she’s running from a kidnapping charge, a Tupperware container of 300 sleeping pills in her glovebox. She has driven from Sydney to plan a funeral with her five surviving siblings (most of whom she hardly speaks to) because their sister Annie is finally, blessedly, inconceivably dead from the brain tumour she was diagnosed with twenty-five years ago, the year everything changed.
 
Kathy wonders – she has always wondered – did Annie get sick to protect her? And if so, from what?
 
In writing Annie’s eulogy, Kathy attempts to understand the tangled story of the Bradley family: from their mother’s childhood during the Japanese occupation of Singapore in World War Two and their father’s experiences in the Malayan conflict and the Vietnam War, to Annie’s cancer and disability, and the events that have shaped the person that Kathy is today. Ultimately, Kathy needs Annie to help her decide whether she will allow herself to love and be loved.
 
Jackie Bailey’s autofiction novel is an astounding debut, deftly weaving together storylines and relationships over decades, and will stay with readers long after the last page.

Praise for The Eulogy:

The Guardian’s Steph Harmon called my book ‘a propulsive story of race, loss and love.’

Books + Publishing‘s Fay Helfenbaum called The Eulogy ‘sprawling and intimate,’ ‘a story that will stay with the reader long after the end.’

ArtsHub‘s Elizabeth Walton says that ‘The Eulogy will translate well to screen for whichever production house is fast and smart enough to secure the rights.’

Kill Your Darlings‘ Ellen Crogan says that ‘Bailey writes about the mechanics of death and the death industry with such authenticity, not letting her reader go without feeling something and also learning something.’

Better Reading reader preview verdict: The Eulogy is ‘a heartbreaking novel. Confronting. Messy. Uncomfortable. But, as its bright yellow cover suggests, it carries hope. I will marinade in this book for a long time to come.’