'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)
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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
Other Formats
- Also braille.
Works about this Work
-
Double Trouble : The Teacher/Satirist Duality in Thea Astley’s Critical Writings
2019
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Queensland Review , December vol. 26 no. 2 2019; (p. 218-231) -
Thea Astley : Writing in Overpoweringly a Male Dominated Literary World
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
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
2006
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Thea Astley's Fictional Worlds 2006; (p. 153-163) -
Thea Astley : Exploring the Centre
2004
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Subverting the Empire : Explorers and Exploration in Australian Fiction 2004; (p. 97-144)
-
The Slow Natives
1966
single work
review
— Appears in: The Realist , Summer no. 24 1966; (p. 33-35)
— Review of The Slow Natives 1965 single work novel -
[Review] The Slow Natives
1966
single work
review
— Appears in: West Australian Teachers' Journal , no. 56 1966; (p. 84)
— Review of The Slow Natives 1965 single work novel -
New Paperbacks
1990
single work
review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 18 August 1990; (p. 75)
— Review of Oceana Fine 1989 single work novel ; The Slow Natives 1965 single work novel ; Wild Cat Falling 1965 single work novel -
[Review] The Slow Natives
1965
single work
review
— Appears in: Advocate: A Weekly Catholic Journal , 30 December 1965; (p. 22)
— Review of The Slow Natives 1965 single work novel -
[Review] The Slow Natives
1965
single work
review
— Appears in: The Age , 6 November 1965; (p. 21)
— Review of The Slow Natives 1965 single work novel -
Thea Astley : A Woman among the Satirists of Post-war Modernity
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
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
2006
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Thea Astley's Fictional Worlds 2006; (p. 153-163) -
Thea Astley Makes Something Out of Nothing
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.'
Awards
- 1965 winner Melbourne Moomba Festival Award
- 1965 winner Miles Franklin Literary Award
Last amended 19 Nov 2019 10:29:53
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- Brisbane, Queensland,
- Gold Coast, Queensland,
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