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Michael Meehan Michael Meehan i(A18489 works by)
Born: Established: 1948 ;
Gender: Male
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Works By

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1 13 y separately published work icon Below the Styx Michael Meehan , Crows Nest : Allen and Unwin , 2010 Z1663193 2010 single work novel crime

'Martin Frobisher has been beating close family members about the head with an epergne. Frobisher, successful publisher and community leader, is in the City Remand Centre, awaiting trial for murder. What shadow has fallen across the comfortable lives of Frobisher, his ambitious wife Coralie and her flaky sister Madeleine? What has led a cultivated and reflective man, known to shoo spiders and earwigs out of the harm's way, to such reckless acts of violence?

'With the prospect of imprisonment for the term of his natural life, can Frobisher and his research assistant Petra find guidance in the life and fortunes of a brilliant young Englishman, marooned in Australia, "the land of vulgarity and mob rule" more than a century earlier, and obsessed with the darker moments in the nation's history? Why does Frobisher appear to care more, in the end, about the life of Marcus Clarke than he does about his own?' (From the publisher's website.)
1 14 y separately published work icon Deception Michael Meehan , Crows Nest : Allen and Unwin , 2008 Z1525002 2008 single work novel

'From the blood-soaked streets of the 1870 siege of Paris, to the tear-gas and chaos of its student riots of 1968; from the desolate, windswept Australian desert to the appalling dank prisons of 19th Century New Caledonia, Deception tells an epic, dramatic story of a search for truth, spanning continents and generations.

'A young Australian man arrives in riot-ravaged Paris, armed with an ancient manuscript written in French and an obsessive desire to piece together the fragments of a mystery that has haunted him since childhood. His journey takes him back and forth in time, over the ruins of desert and city, and through the wrecks and mirages of history and memory.' (Publisher's blurb)
1 Repossession Michael Meehan , 2007 single work short story (taught in 1 units)
— Appears in: Meanjin , vol. 66 no. 2 2007; (p. 144-146) The Best Australian Stories 2007 2007; (p. 86-89) The Best Australian Stories : A Ten Year Collection 2011; (p. 395-398)
1 The Word Made Flesh: Festival, Carnality and Literary Consumption Michael Meehan , 2005 single work essay
— Appears in: TEXT Special Issue Website Series , October no. 4 2005;
1 All in the Imagination Michael Meehan , 2002 single work review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 13-14 July 2002; (p. 12)
— Review of Heat no. 3 (New Series) 2002 periodical issue
1 10 y separately published work icon Stormy Weather Michael Meehan , Milsons Point : Random House , 2000 Z168121 2000 single work novel 'Among the players is the Prospero-like compere, endlessly scribbling and patiently shoring up the psyches of his troupe; Balt, who carries the luggage and the props, as well as a burden of silence and sadness; and Mrs. Barrington, a weeping, middle-aged soprano, whose voice is fading but who, in one magic moment, might again find the haunting truth of her young self. Ceaselessly devising pranks that threaten the success of the performance is the mischievous, swamp-dwelling rabbiter, whose obsession, a pale English girl with a saxophone, becomes a new Ariel. They each, whether show-man or rustic, have their own stories - of illusions fostered and shattered, desires met and denied - and their own particular revelation in the course of Meehan's eloquent and beautifully descriptive narrative. Yet as diverse as they may be, they are bound together this one evening by the transformative power of art.'--Book Jacket.
1 17 y separately published work icon The Salt of Broken Tears Michael Meehan , Milsons Point : Vintage Australia , 1999 Z315472 1999 single work novel 'On a farm on the edge of the endless, remote salt flats of Australia, an embattled family struggles in the midst of the Depression to scrape out an existence and survive the dust and despair. Regular visitors are few - only the Debt Adjuster and the wandering Indian hawker, Cabel Singh - until the day Eileen, a mysterious young woman, blows in from nowhere and alters the family's precarious equilibrium. The boy is fascinated by her, his mother despises her, and Joe, the brutish farmhand and the boy's idol, wants to possess her. When Eileen suddenly disappears, the only trace of her a torn and bloodied dress, the boy saddles up his horse, takes his pup, and sets out to find her. Traveling through the bleak, unforgiving country, the boy encounters a bizarre array of lost souls scattered across the wasteland: a bone-collector living in a ghost town at the end of a gleaming new railway line; an isolated crew of Italian woodcutters who speak of an imprisoned husband, manacled by his wife in a farmhouse basement; a man on a bicycle who recalls his soldier days in Paris after the Great War; and river dwellers who take the boy to a pajama-wearing corpse lying aloft in a tree. Throughout these strange meetings, rumours of the enigmatic Cabel Singh drift like the desert dust, and as the boy journeys on, he becomes aware of another party whose path is converging murderously with his own.'--Book Jacket.
1 On the Swamp (for Joao Guimaraes Rosa) Michael Meehan , 1996 single work short story
— Appears in: Voices , Summer (1996-1997) vol. 6 no. 4 1996; (p. 74-79) Kunapipi , vol. 19 no. 1 1997; (p. 17-23)
1 Where Mr Singh Put His Foot Michael Meehan , 1996 single work short story
— Appears in: Overland , Spring no. 144 1996; (p. 5-8)
1 Law and Literature: Reworking the Master-Plot Michael Meehan , 1992 single work criticism
— Appears in: Beyond the disciplines : the new humanities : papers from the Australian Academy of the Humanities Symposium 1991 1992; (p. 109-120)
1 Stretching the Imagination : Law as Australian Literature Michael Meehan , 1990 single work criticism
— Appears in: Meanjin , Summer vol. 49 no. 4 1990; (p. 773-779)
1 The Art of Guttling : Marcus Clarke and Colonial Gastronomy Michael Meehan , 1990 single work criticism
— Appears in: Meanjin , Winter vol. 49 no. 2 1990; (p. 241-251)
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