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'The getting away was terrible.
Kathleen was very white and Patricia buried herself in the corner of the couch and cried quietly like a grown-up. Lebby had a fever and May had put her into the double bed under the speckled eiderdown. It was ironic that May should spare Lebby from witnessing the departure, since she was the one least troubled by it.
When Amy came into the kitchen with her luggage, Patricia made for the corner of the couch and Kathleen ran to Gus and clung to his leg. He lifted her up, with a brief look of hate towards Amy, across Kathleen's tangled head...
Abandoned by her feckless husband during the Depression, Amy decides to leave her country town—and her three infant children—and try her luck in the big smoke.
Life in wartime Sydney is far from easy, but for Amy there are the hard-won satisfactions of an office job and a house of her own. Until her eldest, Kathleen, appears needing a home while she attends high school. And Amy falls in love with a married man...
Enlivened with note-perfect observations of the everyday, wrenching in its portrayal of a young woman struggling to succeed yet often wilfully ignorant of her own children, Olga Masters' second and last novel is a triumph. At its centre is Amy, one of the great characters in Australian literature. ' (Publisher's blurb)
Notes
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Dedication: For my children.
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Other Formats
- Also braille, sound recording, large print.
Works about this Work
-
Ageing and the Question of `Home' - Olga Masters and Elizabeth Jolley
1991
single work
criticism
— Appears in: An Australian Compass : Essays on Place and Direction in Australian Literature 1991; (p. 132-145) -
The Voices of Silence in Olga Master's Narrative
1991
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Commonwealth , Spring vol. 13 no. 2 1991; (p. 109-114) -
Versions of Ageing: Olga Masters and Elizabeth Jolley
1990
single work
criticism
biography
— Appears in: Olga Masters, An Autumn Crocus : Proceedings of the Olga Masters Memorial Conference, 8-10 July 1988. 1990; (p. 84-96) -
Missing Men and Unmothered Sisters
1990
single work
criticism
biography
— Appears in: Olga Masters, An Autumn Crocus : Proceedings of the Olga Masters Memorial Conference, 8-10 July 1988. 1990; (p. 66-83) -
The Language of Silence in Olga Masters
1990
single work
criticism
biography
— Appears in: Olga Masters, An Autumn Crocus : Proceedings of the Olga Masters Memorial Conference, 8-10 July 1988. 1990; (p. 21-33)
-
Untitled
1987
single work
review
— Appears in: Fremantle Arts Review , July vol. 2 no. 7 1987; (p. 14-15)
— Review of Amy's Children 1987 single work novel -
Art and Insight
1987
single work
review
— Appears in: The CRNLE Reviews Journal , no. 2 1987-1988; (p. 21-22)
— Review of Amy's Children 1987 single work novel -
Olga Masters' Plain Fiction Tells Home Truths...
1987
single work
review
— Appears in: Antipodes , November vol. 1 no. 2 1987; (p. 68-70)
— Review of A Long Time Dying 1985 selected work short story ; The Home Girls 1982 selected work short story ; Amy's Children 1987 single work novel ; Loving Daughters 1984 single work novel -
Throwing Another Tormented Soul on the Barbie
1989
single work
review
— Appears in: Los Angeles Times Book Review , 28 May 1989; (p. 3)
— Review of A Long Time Dying 1985 selected work short story ; Amy's Children 1987 single work novel -
Displacements and Other States of Mind
1988
single work
review
— Appears in: Social Alternatives , September vol. 7 no. 3 1988; (p. 75-76)
— Review of Real Lies 1987 selected work short story ; Amy's Children 1987 single work novel ; Dislocations 1986 selected work short story -
To Marry the Pen with Imagination
1985
single work
column
— Appears in: Fremantle Arts Centre Broadsheet , September - October vol. 4 no. 5 1985; (p. 3-4) Fremantle Arts Review , June vol. 2 no. 6 1987; (p. 6-7) -
Olga Masters...Late Blooming Banksia
1988
single work
biography
— Appears in: The Book Magazine , Winter vol. 2 no. 1 1988; (p. 15) -
Ageing and the Question of `Home' - Olga Masters and Elizabeth Jolley
1991
single work
criticism
— Appears in: An Australian Compass : Essays on Place and Direction in Australian Literature 1991; (p. 132-145) -
Flies in the Milk
1990
single work
criticism
biography
— Appears in: Olga Masters, An Autumn Crocus : Proceedings of the Olga Masters Memorial Conference, 8-10 July 1988. 1990; (p. 1-11) A Kingdom and a Place of Exile : Critical Essays on Postcolonial Women's Writing 2010; (p. 53-61) -
`Scrupulous Meanness': Narrative Economy as Plenitude
1990
single work
criticism
biography
— Appears in: Olga Masters, An Autumn Crocus : Proceedings of the Olga Masters Memorial Conference, 8-10 July 1988. 1990; (p. 12-20)
- Country towns,
- Sydney, New South Wales,
- Urban,
- 1910s
- 1920s
- 1930s