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Anne Rademacher Anne Rademacher i(A142596 works by)
Born: Established: 1961 ;
Gender: Female
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2 8 y separately published work icon Jack and Jill Helen Hodgman , London : Duckworth , 1978 Z570914 1978 single work novel satire 'Jill and her dad are happy enough after her mother dies. Theirs is a simple life in the outback, far from the big city where a coathanger is being built across a sparkling harbour.

'Until Jack arrives at their door one evening, and steps inside to find the skinny, wild-looking child sitting with her grim-faced father. It's the start of all Jill's problems.

'"Absence makes the heart grow fonder," threatens Jack, as he marches off to war. And he's right, in a way—but this is no ordinary romance.

'Spanning the period from the Depression to the freewheeling '60s, Helen Hodgman's award-winning second book is a masterpiece, a twisted fairytale told with her characteristic dark wit.' (From the Penguin website.)
2 13 y separately published work icon Blue Skies Helen Hodgman , London : Duckworth , 1976 Z271751 1976 single work novel (taught in 3 units)

'A young wife and mother watches a clock that seems forever stuck at three-in-the-afternoon. Her neighbour obsesses over the front lawn, and the women at the local beach chatter about knitting patterns. Her husband didn't come home last night.

'She lives for Tuesdays and Thursdays, when the baby is with Mother-in-law and she can escape to a less humdrum life. Jonathan, man about town, is Tuesday. Ben, a freethinking artist, is Thursday.

'But Jonathan is in serious trouble, and Thursdays are turning sour. Very sour.

'A brilliant, acerbic tale of a crack-up in stultifying suburbia, Blue Skies marked the emergence of a unique voice in Australian fiction.' (Abstract for 2011 publication from Text Publishing website.)
4 42 y separately published work icon The Idea of Perfection Kate Grenville , South Melbourne : Picador , 1999 Z141413 1999 single work novel (taught in 5 units)

Set in the eccentric backwater of Karakarook, New South Wales, this is the story of Douglas Cheeseman, a shy and clumsy engineer who meets Harley Savage, a woman who is known for being rather large and abrupt. Harley Savage is a plain, rawboned woman, a part-time museum curator and quilting expert with three failed marriages and a heart condition. Douglas Cheeseman is a shy, gawky engineer with jug-handle ears, one marriage gone sour, and a crippling lack of physical courage. Seeming to be incompetent was something Douglas did to protect himself, just as having a "dangerous streak" served the same purpose for Harley. Douglas is there to pull down a quaint old bridge and Harley aims to foster heritage. They are clearly on a collision course - but when they meet they are unaware that something unexpected is going to happen. (Source: Trove)

 
16 184 y separately published work icon The Secret River Kate Grenville , Melbourne : Text Publishing , 2005 Z1194031 2005 single work novel historical fiction (taught in 69 units)

'In 1806 William Thornhill, a man of quick temper and deep feelings, is transported from the slums of London to New South Wales for the term of his natural life. With his wife Sal and their children he arrives in a harsh land he cannot understand.

'But the colony can turn a convict into a free man. Eight years later Thornhill sails up the Hawkesbury to claim a hundred acres for himself.

'Aboriginal people already live on that river. And other recent arrivals - Thomas Blackwood, Smasher Sullivan and Mrs Herring - are finding their own ways to respond to them.

'Thornhill, a man neither better nor worse than most, soon has to make the most difficult choice of his life.

'Inspired by research into her own family history, Kate Grenville vividly creates the reality of settler life, its longings, dangers and dilemmas. The Secret River is a brilliantly written book, a groundbreaking story about identity, belonging and ownership.' (From the publisher's website.)
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