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Karen Lamb Karen Lamb i(A12845 works by)
Born: Established: 1956
c
England,
c
c
United Kingdom (UK),
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Western Europe, Europe,
;
Gender: Female
Arrived in Australia: 1966
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Works By

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1 Will the Real Subject Please Stand Up? Autobiographical Voices in Biography Karen Lamb , 2021 single work criticism
— Appears in: Life Writing , vol. 18 no. 1 2021; (p. 25-30) Essays in Life Writing 2021; (p. 24-29)

'Biographers exist in a tight partnership with their chosen subject and there is often during the research and writing an equivalent reflective personal journey for the biographer. This is generally obscured, buried among an overwhelming magnitude of sources while the biographer is simultaneously developing the all-important ‘relationship’ required to sustain the narrative journey ahead. Questions and selections beset the biographer, usually about access to, or veracity of, sources but perhaps there are more personal questions that could be put to the biographer. The many works on the craft of biography or collections about the life-writing journey tell only some of this tale. It is not often enough, however, that we acknowledge how biography can be unusually ‘double-voiced’ in communicating a strong sense of the teller in the tale: the biographer’s own life experience usually does lead them to the biography, but also influences the shaping of the work. These are still ‘tales of craft’ in one sense, but autobiographical reflections in another. Perhaps this very personal insight can only be attempted in the ‘afterlife’ of biography; the quiet moments and years that follow such consuming works. In this article, I reflect on this unusually emotional form of life writing.' (Publication abstract)

1 The Biographer’s ‘Keeper’ (When the Estate Is With You) : Writing the Biography of Thea Astley Karen Lamb , 2018 single work essay
— Appears in: Life Writing , vol. 15 no. 4 2018; (p. 591-596)

'Writing biography is often layered in its telling with long lapses of time between research and writing. Of necessity, the perspectives of the biographer change during that time. This article explores the challenges of writing on a living writer, with or without their approval, then writing on the same author, but after their death. Many relationships are made or re-made in such a process. How is the interpretation of new literary evidence, or the selective decisions made about its inclusion, influenced by a biographer having a kindly ‘keeper’ – a supportive literary estate – rather than a hostile one? This article considers that question. What emerges is the story of how license affects not just access to archival material, or to individuals' key to the story, but how support from a literary estate enables the writing of the biography itself. It offers the biographer special freedoms: the chance to stretch interpretation, to experiment with style, and the opportunity to conjure a subject's personality in full – without risking offence. Most importantly, a ‘kindly keeper’ liberates a biographer in unexpected personal ways, affording the privilege of sharing a family's most intimate dynamics as well as contributing rich nuanced understandings of their own life's challenges.'  (Publication abstract)

1 [Review Essay] The Fiction of Thea Astley. Karen Lamb , 2017 single work essay
— Appears in: Journal of the European Association for Studies on Australia , vol. 8 no. 1 2017; (p. 59-60)

'Australian novelist Thea Astley became known for her inclination to stare down the good fortune (four Miles Franklin awards) of her literary success during her lifetime with a persistent and self-generating narrative of having been neglected as a writer. It was never true then, and certainly not now. In fact, from this vantage point, over a decade after her death in 2004, critical attention paid to this gifted novelist has possibly reached a high point.' (Introduction)

1 15 y separately published work icon Thea Astley : Inventing Her Own Weather Karen Lamb , Melbourne : University of Queensland Press , 2015 8355274 2015 single work biography

'Thea Astley: Inventing Her Own Weather is the long-overdue biography of Australian author Thea Astley (1925–2004). Over a fifty-year writing career, Astley published more than a dozen novels and short story collections, including The Acolyte, The Slow Natives and, finally, Drylands in 1999. She was the first person to win multiple Miles Franklin awards – she won four. With many of her works published internationally, Astley was a trailblazer for women writers. In her personal life, she was renowned for her dry wit, eccentricity and compassion.

'Karen Lamb has drawn on an unparalleled range of interviews and correspondence to create a detailed picture of Thea the woman, as well as Astley the writer. She has sought to understand Astley's private world and how that shaped the distinctive body of work that is Thea Astley's literary legacy.'

1 Untitled Karen Lamb , 2012 single work review
— Appears in: Southerly , vol. 72 no. 2 2012; (p. 161-163.)

— Review of Republics of Letters : Literary Communities in Australia 2012 anthology criticism
1 “Yrs Patrick” : Thea Astley’s Brush with Timely Advice on “The Rackety Career of Novel Writing” Karen Lamb , 2012 single work criticism
— Appears in: Southerly , vol. 72 no. 1 2012; (p. 53-65)
'Thea Astley had a difficult relationship with critical responses to her work throughout her entire writing life. Success - early or late career (for she had both) - did little to diminish the wounds she felt were inflicted when a reviewer or critic got to work on her "style". By the mid-1980s there were even some Australian literary scholars who were beginning to endorse Astley's own sense of critical foul play. Elizabeth Perkins wrote of Astley's fiction being the kind of writing which not only "disconcerts enthusiastic readers" but seems to render it "beyond the reach of the more usual modes of criticism" (Perkins 11; 17). Yet until now little has been said about how this state of affairs developed or how Astley, over time, came to deal with it - despite the many re - marks she made in interviews which indicate just how strange her relationship with her public persona as a writer actually was. Astley, for her part, became adept at deflection: her teenage poetry was "a form of acne" (Smith 43); she was "incapable of playing the game of the writertaking- himself-seriously seriously" (Astley, Kunapipi 21); she was just a "bit of a misfit" (Astley, Australian Voices 37) and later, more defensively, "I've worked all my life and I haven't had to time to be in the ghetto de Balmain" (Astley, Sunday Herald 3). One person who had an impact on Astley's self-regard at an early stage in her writing life was Patrick White. The record of the friendship has thus far rested on the evidence of its beginning and ending, detailed in David Marr's biography Patrick White: A life (1991) yet a letter White wrote to Astley in 1961, and which Astley kept from view and from publication in Marr's subsequent collection of White's letters, is a critical new source from which we can interpret the influence of White's mentoring of Astley.' (Author's abstract)
1 The Secret World of Lies Karen Lamb , 2007 single work review
— Appears in: The Australian Literary Review , December vol. 2 no. 12 2007; (p. 20-21)

— Review of The Anatomy of Wings Karen Foxlee , 2006 single work novel ; Lilia's Secret Erina Reddan , 2007 single work novel ; Rohypnol Andrew Hutchinson , 2006 single work novel ; The Zookeeper's War Steven Conte , 2007 single work novel
1 Evolution of a Fiery Soul Karen Lamb , 2007 single work review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 10-11 March 2007; (p. 10)

— Review of With Love and Fury : Selected Letters of Judith Wright Judith Wright , 2006 selected work correspondence
1 Behold the Strange World of Readers Karen Lamb , 2006 single work review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 28-29 October 2006; (p. 9)

— Review of When Books Die : 15 Essays 2006 anthology essay
1 1 Carey's Love Affair with Fakery Karen Lamb , 2006 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , April no. 280 2006; (p. 40-41)

— Review of Theft : A Love Story Peter Carey , 2006 single work novel
1 Bringing Australia Home : Peter Carey, the Booker, and the Repatriation of Australian Culture Karen Lamb , 2005 single work criticism
— Appears in: Fabulating Beauty : Perspectives on the Fiction of Peter Carey 2005; (p. 17-30)
1 In Praise of Prose Roger McDonald , Debra Adelaide , Peter Temple , Nick Earls , Kerryn Goldsworthy , Nicolas Rothwell , Peter Corris , Stella Clarke , Peter Rose , Damien Broderick , Christine Cremen , Stephen Romei , Helen Elliott , Ingrid Wassenaar , Karen Lamb , Cath Kenneally , Jodie Minus , Peter Craven , Natasha Cica , Frank Campbell , Terry Dowling , Liam Davison , John Freeman , Barry Hill , 2005 single work column
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 3-4 December 2005; (p. 4-6, 8)
Reviewers for the Australian each nominate their best books of 2005. The books listed include some by Australian writers.
1 Poetic Questions in a Celebration of Being Karen Lamb , 2005 single work review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 29-30 October 2005; (p. 14)

— Review of Dance of the Nomad : A Study of the Selected Notebooks of A. D. Hope. A. M. McCulloch , 2005 single work criticism
1 Cyclist Thrown By His Wounded Self Karen Lamb , 2005 single work review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 27-28 August 2005; (p. 8-9)

— Review of Slow Man J. M. Coetzee , 2005 single work novel
1 y separately published work icon Thea Astley : A Critical Biography Karen Lamb , Clayton : 1997 Z1774326 1997 single work thesis
1 Loves Sacred/Profane Karen Lamb , 1995 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , October no. 175 1995; (p. 33-34)

— Review of Loves : From the Sacred to the Profane 1995 anthology short story prose
1 Falling into History Karen Lamb , 1994 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , December-January (1994-1995) no. 167 1994; (p. 15-16)

— Review of The Childstone Cycle Kerry Greenwood , 1994 single work novel
1 Australian Writers and Backstage Stories Karen Lamb , 1993 single work review
— Appears in: The Age , 8 May 1993; (p. 8)

— Review of Making Stories : How Ten Australian Novels Were Written 1993 anthology interview extract criticism
1 A Young Writer's Journey to India Karen Lamb , 1993 single work review
— Appears in: The Age , 9 October 1993; (p. 9)

— Review of The Ganges and Its Tributaries Christopher Cyrill , 1993 single work novel
1 Insane, by the Seine Karen Lamb , 1993 single work review
— Appears in: The Age , 11 September 1993; (p. 8)

— Review of Au Pair Fiona McGregor , 1993 single work novel
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