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An exploration of conflict between university-educated middle-class liberalism and self-made working-class values, Petersen sees an electrician and former Aussie Rules football star make a life change by rejecting the 'suburban' values of his former life and 'beer-swilling, ignorant mates' and going to university. He enrolls in an Arts degree and soon finds that his ingenuous, extroverted nature and natural physical aggression make him welcome with fellow students and academic staff alike. He becomes involved in a public demonstration of love-making as a protest against sexual conventions, is involved in a fight with some bikies at a party, and has an affair with a married tutor, Trish. However, when Trish decides to take up an appointment at Oxford and her husband fails him in an examination, Petersen becomes bitter and angered by the betrayal. He subsequently rapes Trish and returns, defeated, to his former career as an electrician.
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
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Interview : David Williamson
Jim Davidson
(interviewer),
1979
single work
interview
— Appears in: Meanjin , Winter vol. 38 no. 2 1979; (p. 173-186) Sideways from the Page : The Meanjin Interviews 1983; (p. 164-183) David Williamson 1988; (p. 83-97)
-
Interview : David Williamson
Jim Davidson
(interviewer),
1979
single work
interview
— Appears in: Meanjin , Winter vol. 38 no. 2 1979; (p. 173-186) Sideways from the Page : The Meanjin Interviews 1983; (p. 164-183) David Williamson 1988; (p. 83-97)
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cAustralia,c
- 1970s