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y separately published work icon The Slow Natives single work   novel  
Issue Details: First known date: 1965... 1965 The Slow Natives
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'A suburban couple have drifted into the shallows of middle-aged boredom. Their fourteen-year-old son is a stranger, meeting their attempts at love with hostile indifference. Surly at home, he is a dab hand at shoplifting and looks like sliding into delinquency.

'Moving from Brisbane to a country convent and the Gold Coast, the novel is a brilliant, witty portrait of the surface of ordinary life. The Leverson family and their connections appear normal but desire and inner emotion are never quite so simple.'

Source: Publisher's blurb (House of Books ed.)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • Melbourne, Victoria,: Sun Books , 1966 .
      image of person or book cover 6079723613476920164.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 186p.
    • New York (City), New York (State),
      c
      United States of America (USA),
      c
      Americas,
      :
      M. Evans ,
      1967 .
      image of person or book cover 5208836250618719256.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
    • Ringwood, Ringwood - Croydon - Kilsyth area, Melbourne - East, Melbourne, Victoria,: Penguin , 1990 .
      image of person or book cover 5141982504626534727.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
    • New York (City), New York (State),
      c
      United States of America (USA),
      c
      Americas,
      :
      G. P. Putnam's Sons ,
      1993 .
      image of person or book cover 8487231906221113478.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 223p.p.
      ISBN: 0399138757
    • Crows Nest, North Sydney - Lane Cove area, Sydney Northern Suburbs, Sydney, New South Wales,: The House of Books , 2012 .
      image of person or book cover 9001315776739589296.jpg
      Image courtesy of publisher's website.
      Extent: 216p.p.
      ISBN: 9781743315637

Other Formats

Works about this Work

Double Trouble : The Teacher/Satirist Duality in Thea Astley’s Critical Writings Kate Cantrell , Lesley Hawkes , 2019 single work criticism
— Appears in: Queensland Review , December vol. 26 no. 2 2019; (p. 218-231)

'Over a fifty-year period, from 1944 to 1994, Thea Astley published a number of critical writings, including essays, newspaper articles and reviews, and short reflections and meditations on her craft. Despite a renewed interest in Astley’s work, however, most critical interrogations of her oeuvre focus on her novels, and more recently her poetry. As a result, Astley’s critical writing has not been afforded the same breadth and depth of investigation as her fiction. This lacuna is troubling, since Astley’s critical works are important not only for their insight, but for what they reveal about Astley’s self-representation, and in particular the dual identity that she embodied as both a teacher and a satirist. This article argues that these dual roles emerge clearly in Astley’s essays and in fact are inextricable from many of her works. Further, the tensions between these two personae — Astley as teacher and Astley as satirist — reveal natural overlaps with her imaginative writing, and reflect her changing ideas about fiction writing, literature, and education.' (Publication abstract)

Thea Astley : Writing in Overpoweringly a Male Dominated Literary World Megha Trivedi , 2010 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Indian Review of World Literature in English , July vol. 6 no. 2 2010;
This paper is an attempt to explore different themes in the novels of Thea Astley.(p. 1)
Thea Astley Makes Something Out of Nothing Paul Genoni , 2007 single work criticism
— Appears in: Antipodes , June vol. 21 no. 1 2007; (p. 35-40)
Paul Genoni discusses the concept of 'nothingness' in Thea Astley's writing. He concludes: 'It is in the disharmony betwen mankind and Australian space that Astley finds the impetus for many of her narratives ... And this triumph of landscape, born of the nothingness of Australian space, is the end point of many of Astley's narratives ... For Astley, it is only death that wins release from the tyranny of space and the awful pall of nothingness.'
Thea Astley's Failed Eden Paul Genoni , 2006 single work criticism
— Appears in: Thea Astley's Fictional Worlds 2006; (p. 153-163)
Thea Astley : Exploring the Centre Paul Genoni , 2004 single work criticism
— Appears in: Subverting the Empire : Explorers and Exploration in Australian Fiction 2004; (p. 97-144)
The Slow Natives Ray Williams , 1966 single work review
— Appears in: The Realist , Summer no. 24 1966; (p. 33-35)

— Review of The Slow Natives Thea Astley , 1965 single work novel
[Review] The Slow Natives John K. Ewers , 1966 single work review
— Appears in: West Australian Teachers' Journal , no. 56 1966; (p. 84)

— Review of The Slow Natives Thea Astley , 1965 single work novel
New Paperbacks Robin Lucas , 1990 single work review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 18 August 1990; (p. 75)

— Review of Oceana Fine Tom Flood , 1989 single work novel ; The Slow Natives Thea Astley , 1965 single work novel ; Wild Cat Falling Colin Johnson , 1965 single work novel
[Review] The Slow Natives F. M. (fl. 1955-1970) , 1965 single work review
— Appears in: Advocate: A Weekly Catholic Journal , 30 December 1965; (p. 22)

— Review of The Slow Natives Thea Astley , 1965 single work novel
[Review] The Slow Natives Neil Jillett , 1965 single work review
— Appears in: The Age , 6 November 1965; (p. 21)

— Review of The Slow Natives Thea Astley , 1965 single work novel
Thea Astley : A Woman among the Satirists of Post-war Modernity Susan Sheridan , 2003 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australian Feminist Studies , November vol. 18 no. 42 2003; (p. 261-271)
The article examines Astley's early satirical novels, asking the question, what do these early satires on gender relations share with those of her male contemporaries, and where do they differ? Are her suburbs and small towns vehicles for satire and ironies that blame women for the excesses and failures of modernity? Arguing that post-war modernism was a strongly masculinist culture which saw art defined by its distance to everyday life, popular values and middle-class consumerism, Sheridan concludes: 'To the extent that she shared this dominant masculinist aesthetic of the 1950s and 1960s, Astley's satirical stance involved her, inevitably, in a modernist rejection of this feminine modernity as innately trivial, distracting and undermining serious aesthetic, intellectual and spiritual values' (270).
Thea Astley : Exploring the Centre Paul Genoni , 2004 single work criticism
— Appears in: Subverting the Empire : Explorers and Exploration in Australian Fiction 2004; (p. 97-144)
1965 Miles Franklin Award to Thea Astley 1966 single work
— Appears in: Literary Letter , no. 36 1966; (p. 1)
Thea Astley's Failed Eden Paul Genoni , 2006 single work criticism
— Appears in: Thea Astley's Fictional Worlds 2006; (p. 153-163)
Thea Astley Makes Something Out of Nothing Paul Genoni , 2007 single work criticism
— Appears in: Antipodes , June vol. 21 no. 1 2007; (p. 35-40)
Paul Genoni discusses the concept of 'nothingness' in Thea Astley's writing. He concludes: 'It is in the disharmony betwen mankind and Australian space that Astley finds the impetus for many of her narratives ... And this triumph of landscape, born of the nothingness of Australian space, is the end point of many of Astley's narratives ... For Astley, it is only death that wins release from the tyranny of space and the awful pall of nothingness.'
Last amended 19 Nov 2019 10:29:53
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