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y separately published work icon The Night Guest single work   novel  
Issue Details: First known date: 2013... 2013 The Night Guest
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'The debut of a major Australian writer, The Night Guest is a mesmerising novel about trust, love, dependence, and the fear that the things you think you know may become the things you're least sure about.

One morning an elderly widow called Ruth wakes thinking a tiger has been in her seaside house. Later that day a formidable woman called Frida arrives, looking as if she's blown in from the sea, but who has in fact come to care for Ruth.

Frida and the tiger: both are here to stay, and neither is what they seem. How far can Ruth trust them? And as memories of childhood in Fiji press upon her with increasing urgency, how far can she trust herself?

The Night Guest, Fiona McFarlane's hypnotic first novel, is no simple tale of a crime committed and a mystery solved. This is a tale that soars above its own suspense to tell us, with exceptional grace and beauty, about ageing, love, power and perception; about how the past can colonise the present, and about things (and people) in places they shouldn't be. Above all, it's a brilliantly involving story about two very particular women.' (Publisher's blurb)

Exhibitions

17487812
17457151

Notes

  • Dedication: For my parents

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • Melbourne, Victoria,: Penguin , 2013 .
      image of person or book cover 1335775646693681466.jpg
      Image courtesy of Penguin Group
      Extent: 304p.
      Note/s:
      • Published: 21/08/2013
      ISBN: 9781926428550
    • London,
      c
      England,
      c
      c
      United Kingdom (UK),
      c
      Western Europe, Europe,
      :
      Sceptre ,
      2013 .
      image of person or book cover 6878874011958354090.jpg
      Image courtesy of publisher's website.
      Note/s:
      • Published 26 September 2013
      ISBN: 9781444776683, 1444776681
    • New York (City), New York (State),
      c
      United States of America (USA),
      c
      Americas,
      :
      Farrar Straus and Giroux ,
      2013 .
      image of person or book cover 3519912509028373480.jpg
      Image courtesy of publisher's website.
      Extent: 241p.p.
      Reprinted: 2014 (pbk)
      ISBN: 9780865477735 (hbk), 0865477736 (hbk), 9780865478169 (pbk), 0865478163 (pbk)
    • Melbourne, Victoria,: Penguin , 2014 .
      image of person or book cover 8626697952097969650.jpg
      Cover image courtesy of publisher.
      Extent: 288p.
      Note/s:
      • Published 23 July 2014
      ISBN: 9780143571339
    • London,
      c
      England,
      c
      c
      United Kingdom (UK),
      c
      Western Europe, Europe,
      :
      Sceptre ,
      2014 .
      image of person or book cover 5106325874134158911.jpg
      Image courtesy of publisher's website.
      Extent: 304p.
      Note/s:
      • Published: 19th June 2014
      ISBN: 9781444776690, 144477669X
Alternative title: Noční host : román
Language: Czech
    • c
      Czech Republic,
      c
      Eastern Europe, Europe,
      :
      Paseka ,
      2013 .
      image of person or book cover 1935063738183525521.jpg
      Image courtesy of publisher's website.
      Extent: 262p.p.
      ISBN: 9788074323362, 8074323366

Other Formats

  • Sound recording.
  • Large print.

Works about this Work

Home Away from Home : The Aged Care Facility as Transnational Space Paul Sharrad , 2021 single work criticism
— Appears in: Transnational Spaces : India and Australia 2021; (p. 195-210)

'The Australian government has recently received the report of a Royal Commission into the nation’s management of aged care. This followed media scandals about physical and sexual abuse, neglect and inadequate controls during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. Though all discussion occurred within a national context, this chapter shows that the aged-care ‘industry’ is a space of transnational flows, both in the export of business and models and in the internal movements of staff who are frequently unskilled immigrant labour. The chapter notes some Australian-Indian links and looks at how ‘the old folks’ home’ as heterotopic space has been represented in Australian literature.'

Source: Abstract.

Strange Bodies. Dementia and Legaciesof Colonialism in Fiona McFarlane’sThe Night Guest Emily Thew , 2021 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Politics of Dementia : Forgetting and Remembering the Violent Past in Literature, Film and Graphic Narratives 2021; (p. 175-188)
Fiona McFarlane’s novel The Night Guest(2010) tells the story of Ruth Field, an older woman living alone in an isolated house by the sea who believes that a mysterious tiger is visiting her home at night. Although the novel takes place in contemporary Australia, Ruth spent her childhood in colonial Fiji as the daughter of white missionaries, and her memories of this time begin increasingly to infiltrate her daily life. Ruth starts to become unwell and confused as the novel unfolds, and although the text never names dementia specifically, it is evident that she is experiencing many of the symptoms commonly associated with this cognitive disorder, for example, difficulties with memory and recall, losing her way in familiar places and becoming easily distracted.1By keeping this condition latent in the text, however, McFarlane’s novel asks us to reflect on the ways that as readers we might bring certain kinds of assumptions to bear on older bodies when we encounter them in texts. This incentive to reflect on our own biases is made compelling by the novel’s depiction of two key relation-ships: the one between Ruth and the visiting tiger of the title, and also Ruth’s connection to her live-in carer, Frida, whose presence is alternately comforting and abusive' (Introduction)
Driving, Not Losing, the Plot : Narrative Patterns in Implicit and Explicit Fictional Representations of Dementia Malte Völk , 2017 single work criticism
— Appears in: Open Cultural Studies , January vol. 1 no. 1 2017; (p. 55-65)

'This essay examines representations of dementia in literary works. It draws a distinction between those representations of dementia symptoms that can be understood as implicit and those that can be understood as explicit. Whereas implicit representations do not treat dementia as a distinct, clearly identified disorder, they nonetheless display a certain similarity to the explicitly medicalized discussion of dementia symptoms. This similarity lies in the fact that dementia symptoms are used to drive forward the narrative action. The essay traces this pattern by analysing different literary works with this feature in common and discusses the significance of this narrative’s dynamic potential for the plasticity of cultural narratives of dementia and old age.' (Publication abstract)

House Style Brigid Delaney , 2016 single work column
— Appears in: The Saturday Paper , 2 April 2016;
The Voss Literary Prize Celebrates a Fine New Australian Novel Anthony Uhlmann , 2014 single work column
— Appears in: The Conversation , 21 November 2014;
Drift into Dotage Unleashes Strong Felines Ashley Hay , 2013 single work review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 24-25 August 2013; (p. 19)

— Review of The Night Guest Fiona McFarlane , 2013 single work novel
Tiger Visits Come with Old Age James McNamara , 2013 single work review
— Appears in: The West Australian , 27 August 2013; (p. 7)

— Review of The Night Guest Fiona McFarlane , 2013 single work novel
[Review] The Night Guest Catherine Ford , 2013 single work review
— Appears in: The Monthly , August no. 92 2013; (p. 56)

— Review of The Night Guest Fiona McFarlane , 2013 single work novel
The Night Guest Julie Thomson , 2013 single work review
— Appears in: The Courier-Mail , 21-22 September 2013; (p. 20)

— Review of The Night Guest Fiona McFarlane , 2013 single work novel
Fear and Menace Flourish in Dementia's Unreliable World Louise Swinn , 2013 single work review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 12 October 2013; (p. 28-29)

— Review of The Night Guest Fiona McFarlane , 2013 single work novel
Interview : Fiona McFarlane Interview : Fiona McFarlane; A Journey through the Mind; The Mind Stalked by Time Marc McEvoy , 2013 single work interview
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 21-22 September 2013; (p. 32-33) The Canberra Times , 21 September 2013; The Age , 21 September 2013; (p. 28-29)
Memories and Memoirs are High on Stella's List Stephen Romei , 2014 single work column
— Appears in: The Australian , 21 March 2014; (p. 5)
Franklin Short List Revealed William Yeoman , 2014 single work column
— Appears in: The West Australian , 20 May 2014; (p. 7)
In the Barbara Jefferis Award, a Novel about Sexual Desire among the Elderly Ties for First Prize Linda Morris , 2014 single work column
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 7 November 2014; The Age , 7 November 2014; The Canberra Times , 7 November 2014;
The Voss Literary Prize Celebrates a Fine New Australian Novel Anthony Uhlmann , 2014 single work column
— Appears in: The Conversation , 21 November 2014;
Last amended 29 Aug 2022 15:58:46
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