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y separately published work icon Coming Rain single work   novel  
Issue Details: First known date: 2015... 2015 Coming Rain
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'The contractor left a letter from their father and a white carton of tailor-made American cigarettes with a big red circle on them. Lucky Strike toasted. He would remember his mother holding the carton as she hugged him and told him to do his best. The crinkly sound of the cellophane. The other kids around them like chooks as he tried to say goodbye Mum.

'Western Australia, 1955. Lew McLeod has been travelling and working with Painter Hayes since he was a boy. Shearing, charcoal burning—whatever comes. Painter made him his first pair of shoes. But Lew’s a grown man now. And with this latest job, shearing for John Drysdale and his daughter Clara, everything will change.

'Stephen Daisley writes in lucid, rippling prose of how things work, and why; of the profound satisfaction in hard work done with care, of love and friendship and the damage that both contain.' (Publication summary)

Notes

  • Dedication: To Sylvia
  • Epigraph: The father...lit the candle at the kitchen fire, put it where it shouldn't light the boy's face, and watched him. And the child knew her was watching him, and pretended to sleep, and, so pretending, he slept. –Henry Lawson 'A Child in the Dark, and a Foreign Father'

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • Melbourne, Victoria,: Text Publishing , 2015 .
      image of person or book cover 5960155210681341014.jpg
      Image courtesy of publisher's website.
      Extent: 268p.
      Note/s:
      • Published 22 April 2015
      ISBN: 9781922182029
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Other Formats

  • Sound recording.
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Works about this Work

Why Are Australian Authors Obsessed with Killing off Kangaroos? Donna Mazza , 2019 single work column
— Appears in: The Conversation , 4 March 2019;

'Kangaroos are the most visible of Australia’s unique animals, but despite their charm and national icon status, Australian writers perpetually kill them off.' (Introduction)
Kangaroos and Predators in Recent Australian Fiction : A Post-Pastoral Reading Donna Mazza , 2018 single work criticism
— Appears in: Antipodes , vol. 32 no. 1/2 2018; (p. 94-108) 'When dusk falls in regional Australia, it is common to see mobs of kangaroos ranging in paddocks and on golf courses. They lounge about in family groups in the shade of remnant eucalyptus trees and share the pasture of bovines. They seem peaceful and idyllic, with their wide, dark eyes, cute joeys, and unique gait, and they appear to have close family bonds. They are the most visible and commonplace of Australia's unique animals. Despite all the charm of these awe-inspiring creatures and their status as a national icon, Australian writers perpetually kill them off. Recent Australian fiction has featured native animals that gain substantial narrative agency. Stephen Daisley's Coming Rain (2015) and Louis Nowra's Into That Forest (2012) undertake extended narratives from the perspective of native animals. The dingo and the thylacine, respectively, are given voice in fiction by these works. Domestic, nonnative animals in Australia have also received serious treatment recently by authors such as Eva Hornung and Michelle de Kretser. But Australian stories are less sympathetic toward the kangaroo. One appears struggling in a rabbit trap, doomed and dying in Charlotte Wood's The Natural Way of Things (2015), Tim Winton has one killed on the road, dissected and fed to dogs in Breath (2008). There is an inventory of such examples. Serious treatment of the extinct thylacine abounds, but the kangaroo is often represented as roadkill and dog food. The expendable nature of the kangaroo is a widely held view in Australia, so it is little wonder that this attitude is articulated in our fiction; but it is a bitter irony that the creature that defines us to the rest of the world is perpetually under siege, in life and in literature.' (Introduction)
 
Miles Franklin Award Longlist 2016 : Five Out of Nine Nominees Are Women Steph Harmon , 2016 single work column
— Appears in: The Guardian Australia , 5 April 2016; Includes The 2016 Miles Franklin longlist
Best Reads – End of Story Deborah Bogle , 2015 single work column
— Appears in: The Sunday Mail , 20 December 2015; (p. 24)
Review : Coming Rain Judith Grace , 2015 single work review
— Appears in: Good Reading , August 2015; (p. 37)
— Review of Coming Rain Stephen Daisley , 2015 single work novel
Animal Passions Run High in Shearers’ Tale Peter Pierce , 2015 single work review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 2-3 May 2015; (p. 16-17)
— Review of Coming Rain Stephen Daisley , 2015 single work novel
Well Read Katharine England , 2015 single work review
— Appears in: The Advertiser , 9 May 2015; (p. 32)
— Review of Coming Rain Stephen Daisley , 2015 single work novel ; The Wonder Lover Malcolm Knox , 2015 single work novel
Frontier Story David Whish-Wilson , 2015 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , June-July no. 372 2015; (p. 43)
— Review of Coming Rain Stephen Daisley , 2015 single work novel
Review : Coming Rain Judith Grace , 2015 single work review
— Appears in: Good Reading , August 2015; (p. 37)
— Review of Coming Rain Stephen Daisley , 2015 single work novel
Best Reads – End of Story Deborah Bogle , 2015 single work column
— Appears in: The Sunday Mail , 20 December 2015; (p. 24)
Miles Franklin Award Longlist 2016 : Five Out of Nine Nominees Are Women Steph Harmon , 2016 single work column
— Appears in: The Guardian Australia , 5 April 2016; Includes The 2016 Miles Franklin longlist
Why Are Australian Authors Obsessed with Killing off Kangaroos? Donna Mazza , 2019 single work column
— Appears in: The Conversation , 4 March 2019;

'Kangaroos are the most visible of Australia’s unique animals, but despite their charm and national icon status, Australian writers perpetually kill them off.' (Introduction)
Kangaroos and Predators in Recent Australian Fiction : A Post-Pastoral Reading Donna Mazza , 2018 single work criticism
— Appears in: Antipodes , vol. 32 no. 1/2 2018; (p. 94-108) 'When dusk falls in regional Australia, it is common to see mobs of kangaroos ranging in paddocks and on golf courses. They lounge about in family groups in the shade of remnant eucalyptus trees and share the pasture of bovines. They seem peaceful and idyllic, with their wide, dark eyes, cute joeys, and unique gait, and they appear to have close family bonds. They are the most visible and commonplace of Australia's unique animals. Despite all the charm of these awe-inspiring creatures and their status as a national icon, Australian writers perpetually kill them off. Recent Australian fiction has featured native animals that gain substantial narrative agency. Stephen Daisley's Coming Rain (2015) and Louis Nowra's Into That Forest (2012) undertake extended narratives from the perspective of native animals. The dingo and the thylacine, respectively, are given voice in fiction by these works. Domestic, nonnative animals in Australia have also received serious treatment recently by authors such as Eva Hornung and Michelle de Kretser. But Australian stories are less sympathetic toward the kangaroo. One appears struggling in a rabbit trap, doomed and dying in Charlotte Wood's The Natural Way of Things (2015), Tim Winton has one killed on the road, dissected and fed to dogs in Breath (2008). There is an inventory of such examples. Serious treatment of the extinct thylacine abounds, but the kangaroo is often represented as roadkill and dog food. The expendable nature of the kangaroo is a widely held view in Australia, so it is little wonder that this attitude is articulated in our fiction; but it is a bitter irony that the creature that defines us to the rest of the world is perpetually under siege, in life and in literature.' (Introduction)
 
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Awards

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Last amended 21 Aug 2019 12:34:26
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