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AbstractHistoryArchive Description
'Belle's mother was a drummer in an all-women's group before she turned vegetarian and went to live in a shack in the hills. Her father was a trumpeter Belle met for the first time in a Manhattan jazz bar. She had a husband, too, briefly - an upwardly mobile deputy librarian searching for the perfect sauce.Belle even had a best friend once, whose ebullience was finally subdued in vermouth and leather sofas.Their selves were their centres, and Belle realized she'd have to research much further to find her own ...' (Publication summary)
Notes
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Dedication: If this morning and this meeting are dreams; each of us has to believe that he is the dreamer. perhaps we have stopped dreaming, perhaps not. Our obvious duty, meanwhile, is to accept the dream just as we accept the world and being born and seeing and breathing. from 'The Other' (The Book of Sand) by Jorge Luis Borges. (translated by Norman Thomas di Giovanni).
Contents
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Introduction,
essay
'Until recently, I had not read Reaching Tin River, though I had admired several other novels by Thea Astley. If I had investigated its premise beforehand – a woman becomes obsessed with a long-dead man she glimpses in an archival photograph of early settlers – I am not certain I would have chosen to read it. Frankly, I’ve had my fill of novels about dead white men, of novels that romanticise our colonial past. And yet I should have known that I would be safe in Astley’s hands.' (Introduction)
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
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Introduction
2018
essay
— Appears in: Reaching Tin River 2018;'Until recently, I had not read Reaching Tin River, though I had admired several other novels by Thea Astley. If I had investigated its premise beforehand – a woman becomes obsessed with a long-dead man she glimpses in an archival photograph of early settlers – I am not certain I would have chosen to read it. Frankly, I’ve had my fill of novels about dead white men, of novels that romanticise our colonial past. And yet I should have known that I would be safe in Astley’s hands.' (Introduction)
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Unsentimental Journey : Revisiting Thea Astley’s Reaching Tin River
2018
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Kill Your Darlings [Online] , May 2018;'Until recently, I had not read Reaching Tin River, though I had admired several other novels by Thea Astley. If I had investigated its premise beforehand – a woman becomes obsessed with a long-dead man she glimpses in an archival photograph of early settlers – I am not certain I would have chosen to read it. Frankly, I’ve had my fill of novels about dead white men, of novels that romanticise our colonial past. And yet I should have known that I would be safe in Astley’s hands.' (Introduction)
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Portrayal of Librarians in Australian Creative Writing Australian Library Journal
2011
single work
criticism
— Appears in: The Australian Library Journal , June vol. 60 no. 2 2011; (p. 144-154) 'An exploration is made of the ways in which librarians have been depicted in Australian creative writing. Reference is made to characters in novels, short stories, drama and poetry. With respect to novels, there is some consideration of characterisation and its relationship to plot.' Michael Middleton. -
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's Failed Eden
2006
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Thea Astley's Fictional Worlds 2006; (p. 153-163)
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Untitled
1991
single work
review
— Appears in: Fremantle Arts Review , December and vol. 6 no. 1 January vol. 5 no. 12 1991; (p. 13)
— Review of Reaching Tin River 1990 single work novel -
Travelling Inwards
1990
single work
review
— Appears in: The CRNLE Reviews Journal , no. 1 1990; (p. 48-54)
— Review of Reaching Tin River 1990 single work novel ; Flying Lessons 1990 single work novel -
About Books
1990
single work
review
— Appears in: National Library of Australia News , October vol. 1 no. 1 1990; (p. 8-11)
— Review of The Kadaitcha Sung 1990 single work novel ; Reaching Tin River 1990 single work novel ; Sheep and the Diva : Stories 1990 selected work short story ; The Mighty World of Eye : Stories, Anti-Stories 1990 selected work short story criticism ; Isobars 1990 selected work short story ; Charades 1988 single work novel ; The Great World 1990 single work novel ; Flying Lessons 1990 single work novel ; Invisible Histories 1989 selected work short story poetry biography ; Marriages 1990 selected work short story ; Ingelba and the Five Black Matriarchs 1990 single work life story ; The Story of the Year of 1912 in the Village of Elza Darzins : A Novel 1990 single work novel ; A Body of Water : A Year's Notebook 1990 selected work autobiography short story poetry diary ; Smyrna : A Novel 1989 single work novel -
Untitled
1990
single work
review
— Appears in: The Age , 16 June 1990; (p. 8)
— Review of Rynosseros 1990 selected work short story ; Reaching Tin River 1990 single work novel -
Wide Horizons: Australian Science Fiction
1991
single work
review
— Appears in: Editions , March-April no. 10 1991; (p. 13-14)
— Review of Rynosseros 1990 selected work short story ; Reaching Tin River 1990 single work novel ; A Pursuit of Miracles : Eight Stories 1990 selected work short story ; Salt 1990 single work novel ; My Lady Tongue and Other Tales 1990 selected work short story -
'Passing Ghosts' : Reading the Family Album in Thea Astley's It's Raining in Mango and Reaching Tin River
2001
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Australian Studies , Summer vol. 16 no. 1 2001; (p. 23-44) -
The Photographic Eye: The Camera in Recent Australian Fiction
2002
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Antipodes , December vol. 16 no. 2 2002; (p. 137-141) Genoni discusses Australian novels, published largely in the late 1990s, that feature 'a character who is a cameraman or woman, sometimes professional, sometimes amateur, but to whom the world is framed, filtered and focused through the lens, the viewfinder, and the zoom.' He concludes, 'if we accept that space is produced by discursive practices, then we must question whether the text that is embedded in over 150 years of photgraphic production has not shaped an imagination that encounters space in terms of time as well as, or perhaps rather than, place.' -
Thea Astley : Exploring the Centre
2004
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Subverting the Empire : Explorers and Exploration in Australian Fiction 2004; (p. 97-144) -
Thea Astley's Failed Eden
2006
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Thea Astley's Fictional Worlds 2006; (p. 153-163) -
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)
Awards
- 2010 shortlisted Australian Book Review Fan Poll
- 1990 winner New South Wales State Literary Awards — Christina Stead Prize for Fiction
- 1990 shortlisted Miles Franklin Literary Award
- Australian Outback, Central Australia,