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AbstractHistoryArchive Description
Outer Maroo, a small opal mining town in the Australian outback, is stewing in heat, drought, and guilty anxiety. Some ghastly cataclysm has occurred on the opal fields, but this is a taboo subject. When, from time to time, strangers arrive looking for missing children, they mysteriously disappear. Until the day two strangers, on the trail of a missing son and a daughter, refuse to succumb to accidents. The repressed secrets begin to dislodge themselves. Once the walls against the past begin to come down, nothing can stop the avalanche. And at the heart of this mystery is the cult Messiah, Oyster, dressed in white, sexually compelling, and preaching the end of time.
Notes
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Sound recording, braille and large print editions available
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This book appeared on the New York Times' "Editors' Choice" and Notable Books List ; and was a finalist for the Trillium Award in Canada.
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
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Uncertain Seasons in the El Niño Continent : Local and Global Views
2019
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Anglica : An International Journal of English Studies , vol. 28 no. 3 2019; (p. 7-19)'As global climate change shifts seasonal patterns, local and uncertain seasons of Australia have global relevance. Australia’s literature tracks extreme local weather events, exploring ‘slow catastrophes’ and ‘endurance.’ Humanists can change public policy in times when stress is a state of life, by reflecting on the psyches of individuals, rather than the patterns of the state. ‘Probable’ futures, generated by mathematical models that predict nature and economics, have little to say about living with extreme weather. Hope is not easily modelled. The frameworks that enable hopeful futures are qualitatively different. They can explore the unimaginable by offering an ‘interior apprehension.’' (Publication abstract)
- y Contemporary Australian Novels and Crises of Ecologies Melbourne : 2017 17217106 2017 single work thesis This thesis argues that literature can cultivate our sensuous attunement to ecological crises and enhance our powers of living amid these crises. These literary potentials are confirmed in studies of novels by Alexis Wright, Janette Turner Hospital and Tim Winton.
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Due Preparations for Paradise : or, The Plague Now According to Hany Abu-Assad and Janette Turner Hospital
2012
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Engaging with Literature of Commitment : The Worldly Scholar (Volume 2) 2012; (p. 217-230) -
Inside Out in the Land Down Under : Reading Trauma through Janette Turner Hospital's Oyster
2011
single work
criticism
— Appears in: The Splintered Glass : Facets of Trauma in the Post-Colony and Beyond 2011; (p. 221-243) Isabel Fraile claims that 'While a thoroughly enjoyable and gripping experience, reading Janette Turner Hospital's Oyster (1996) often manages to feel, at the same time, like reading a handbook of trauma theory.' (p 221) -
Interview with Janet Turner Hospital
Cheryl Jorgensen
(interviewer),
2010
single work
interview
— Appears in: Hecate , vol. 36 no. 1 & 2 2010; (p. 186-187)
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This Microcosm Is Her 'Oyster'
1996
single work
review
— Appears in: Books in Canada , December vol. 25 no. 9 1996; (p. 20-21)
— Review of Oyster 1996 single work novel -
Some Local Dantes
1997
single work
review
— Appears in: Overland , Winter no. 147 1997; (p. 83-85)
— Review of The Conversations at Curlow Creek 1996 single work novel ; Highways to a War 1995 single work novel ; Keep It Simple, Stupid 1996 single work novel ; The Island in the Mind 1996 selected work novel ; The Drowner 1996 single work novel ; Oyster 1996 single work novel -
In the Back of the Outback
1996
single work
review
— Appears in: The Times Literary Supplement , 13 September no. 4876 1996; (p. 22)
— Review of Oyster 1996 single work novel -
Apocalyptic Visions Burning Bright but Fading Too Soon
1996
single work
review
— Appears in: The Sunday Age , 22 September 1996; (p. 8)
— Review of Oyster 1996 single work novel -
Intrigue in the Australian Bush
1996
single work
review
— Appears in: The Courier-Mail , 21 September 1996; (p. wkd 7)
— Review of Oyster 1996 single work novel -
'Just Enough Religion to Make Us Hate': The Case of Tourmaline and Oyster
2004
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Antipodes , June vol. 18 no. 1 2004; (p. 9-15) Carr asserts that 'Stow and Hospital use fiction to explore the devestation wrought on a community whose long-suppressed spiritual desires find their outlet in the perverse and destructive.' He contends that 'the residents of Tourmaline and Outer Maroo, in refusing to address their alienation from their environment and themselves, ensure the disaster that closes both novels.' -
Words of Water : Reading Otherness in Tourmaline and Oyster
2004
single work
criticism
— Appears in: JASAL , vol. 3 no. 2004; (p. 143-157) -
Triangulating the Self : Turner Hospital, Hoffman and Sante
2005
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Transcultural Graffiti : Diasporic Writing and the Teaching of Literary Studies 2005; (p. 115-136) -
The Many Circles of Hell: Dante's Legacy in Janette Turner Hospital's Literary Thrillers
2005
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Flinders Dante Conferences 2002 & 2004 2005; (p. 190-199) -
Literature in the Arid Zone
2007
single work
criticism
— Appears in: The Littoral Zone : Australian Contexts and Their Writers 2007; (p. 70-92) This chapter surveys and assesses from an ecocentric perspective some representative literary portrayals of the Australian deserts. Generally, it contrasts works that portray the desert as an alien, hostile, and undifferentiated void with works that recognise and value the biological particularities of specific desert places. It explores the literature of three dominant cultural orientations to the deserts: pastoralism, mining, and traversal. It concludes with a consideration of several multi-voiced and/or multi-genred bioregionally informed works that suggests fruitful directions for more ecocentric literary approaches. (abstract taken from The Littoral Zone)
Awards
- 1997 shortlisted NBC Banjo Awards — NBC Banjo Award for Fiction
- 1997 shortlisted Miles Franklin Literary Award
Last amended 6 Jul 2021 14:34:19
Settings:
- Queensland,
- Australian Outback, Central Australia,
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