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y separately published work icon Puberty Blues single work   novel  
Issue Details: First known date: 1979... 1979 Puberty Blues
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

''By day, we were at school learning logarithms, but by night - in the back of cars, under the bowling alley, on Cronulla Beach, or, if you were lucky, in a bed while someone's parents were out - you paid off your friendship ring.' For Deb and Sue, life is about surfies, panel vans, straight-leg Levis, nicking off from school, getting wasted and fitting in. But why should guys have all the fun? Puberty Blues is raw, humorous and honest. An Australian classic. 'A profoundly moral story' -- Germaine Greer 'I don't recall reading Puberty Blues so much as devouring it. I was about thirteen, alone in my bedroom with the door firmly shut. I was fascinated' -- Kylie Minogue'

Adaptations

form y separately published work icon Puberty Blues Margaret Kelly , ( dir. Bruce Beresford ) Sydney : Limelight Productions , 1981 Z826184 1981 single work film/TV (taught in 3 units)

Debbie and Sue are accepted into Greenhill Beach's gang, an elite group of teenagers occupying a particular stretch of Cronulla beachfront. As surfie groupies, Debbie and Sue find out that they are expected to submit to male whims and play out 'strange' rituals, such as not eating or going to the bathroom when a boy is around. The girls' life mainly consists of doing what everyone else does: watching the boys surf, having sex with them (in the back seat of cars and at home-alone parties), and getting drunk. The narrative maintains a humorously ironic distance from the awfulness of the scene, particularly through the use of narration. The boys, though portrayed as collectively dominant, are individually consigned to the margins, while Debbie and Sue ultimately break out of the confines of male-imposed rules.

form y separately published work icon Puberty Blues Fiona Seres , Alice Bell , Tony McNamara , ( dir. Emma Freeman et. al. )agent Australia : Southern Star John Edwards , 2012-2014 Z1832856 2012 series - publisher film/TV

'Puberty Blues is an Australian classic which chronicles a special moment of our history. In the early 1970s, the middle baby boomers were coming into their adolescence and early adulthood. The sexual revolution was in full flow. In America "teenagerdom" had come into its own in the sixties. It happened here in the seventies, with the arrival of drugs and the anti-Vietnam fed youth rebellion. And the wild mood finds its apotheosis in surf culture. Puberty Blues is a picture of Australian suburban life in revolution as the wild kids get their rocks off, exploring the worlds of the parents in a context where money and loans are much cheaper, divorce is much easier, full employment and prosperity abound, conventional morality is shifting and everything is endlessly possible.'

Source: Australian Television Information Archive. (Sighted: 20/8/2013)

Notes

  • Dedication: To Virginia Ferguson our literary god-mother.
  • Brief extract published in the Age, 6 February 1995, Student Update, p.4.

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • Carlton, Parkville - Carlton area, Melbourne - North, Melbourne, Victoria,: McPhee Gribble , 1979 .
      image of person or book cover 524217225432062602.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 120p.
      Reprinted: 1979 , 1980
      ISBN: 0869140108
    • New York (City), New York (State),
      c
      United States of America (USA),
      c
      Americas,
      :
      Wideview Books ,
      1982 .
      image of person or book cover 5035176716492323936.jpg
      Extent: 120p.
      ISBN: 0872237680 (pbk.)
    • Fitzroy, Fitzroy - Collingwood area, Melbourne - North, Melbourne, Victoria,: Ringwood, Ringwood - Croydon - Kilsyth area, Melbourne - East, Melbourne, Victoria,: McPhee Gribble ; Penguin , 1984 .
      Extent: 120p.
      ISBN: 014007242X
    • Sydney, New South Wales,: Picador , 2002 .
      image of person or book cover 2877508114388272515.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: xiii, 116p.p.
      Note/s:
      • Forewords by Kylie Minogue and Germaine Greer.
      ISBN: 0330363824
    • London,
      c
      England,
      c
      c
      United Kingdom (UK),
      c
      Western Europe, Europe,
      :
      Picador ,
      2002 .
      image of person or book cover 8362417376387677870.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: xii, 111pp.
      Note/s:
      • Forewords by Kylie Minogue and Germaine Greer.
      ISBN: 0330489453(pbk.)
    • Melbourne, Victoria,: Vintage Australia , 2022 .
      image of person or book cover 1524628800101294884.jpg
      Image courtesy of publisher's website.
      Extent: 144p.
      Note/s:
      • Published: 5 January 2022
      ISBN: 9781761045684
Alternative title: 渚のレッスン : ハイスクール・グラフィティー
Alternative title: Nagisa no ressun : haisukūru gurafitii
Language: Japanese
    • Tokyo, Honshu,
      c
      Japan,
      c
      East Asia, South and East Asia, Asia,
      :
      Kindai Eigasha ,
      1982 .
      image of person or book cover 5704265094171084630.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 144p.

Other Formats

  • Braille.
  • Sound recording.

Works about this Work

Ten Great Australian Beach Reads Set at the Beach Liz Ellison , 2018 single work review
— Appears in: The Conversation , 28 December 2018;

— Review of Floundering Romy Ash , 2012 single work novel ; Puberty Blues Kathy Lette , Gabrielle Carey , 1979 single work novel ; Time's Long Ruin : A Novel Stephen Orr , 2008 single work novel ; Breath Tim Winton , 2008 single work novel ; The Empty Beach Peter Corris , 1983 single work novel ; The True Colour of the Sea Robert Drewe , 2018 selected work short story ; Atomic City Sally Breen , 2013 single work novel ; Not Meeting Mr Right Anita Heiss , 2007 single work novel ; After January Nick Earls , 1996 single work novel ; Bluebottle Belinda Castles , 2018 single work novel
Books That Changed Me : Megan Jacobson Megan Jacobson , 2016 single work column
— Appears in: The Sun-Herald , 7 February 2016; (p. 12)
On and Off the Beach : Puberty Blues on Film Elizabeth McMahon , 2013 single work criticism
— Appears in: Telling Stories : Australian Life and Literature 1935–2012 2013; (p. 378-384)
Lyn Linning Looks at Reprints to Enjoy Again and Introduce to a New Readership Lyn Linning , 2012 single work review
— Appears in: Magpies : Talking About Books for Children , November vol. 27 no. 5 2012; (p. 41)

— Review of Puberty Blues Kathy Lette , Gabrielle Carey , 1979 single work novel ; Greylands Isobelle Carmody , 1997 single work children's fiction
Puberty Begins August Helene Sobolewski , Antimo Iannella , 2012 single work column
— Appears in: The Advertiser , 23 July 2012; (p. 21)
First Impressions : The Critical Archives Eva Learner , 1979 single work review
— Appears in: The Age , 7 November 1979; The Age , 27 September 2003; (p. 2)

— Review of Puberty Blues Kathy Lette , Gabrielle Carey , 1979 single work novel
Lyn Linning Looks at Reprints to Enjoy Again and Introduce to a New Readership Lyn Linning , 2012 single work review
— Appears in: Magpies : Talking About Books for Children , November vol. 27 no. 5 2012; (p. 41)

— Review of Puberty Blues Kathy Lette , Gabrielle Carey , 1979 single work novel ; Greylands Isobelle Carmody , 1997 single work children's fiction
[Review] Puberty Blues Rhonda Bracey , 1993 single work review
— Appears in: Fiction Focus : New Titles for Teenagers , vol. 7 no. 4 1993; (p. 7-8)

— Review of Puberty Blues Kathy Lette , Gabrielle Carey , 1979 single work novel
Books Mike Shuttleworth , 2002 single work review
— Appears in: The Sunday Age , 13 October 2002; (p. 9)

— Review of Puberty Blues Kathy Lette , Gabrielle Carey , 1979 single work novel
Ten Great Australian Beach Reads Set at the Beach Liz Ellison , 2018 single work review
— Appears in: The Conversation , 28 December 2018;

— Review of Floundering Romy Ash , 2012 single work novel ; Puberty Blues Kathy Lette , Gabrielle Carey , 1979 single work novel ; Time's Long Ruin : A Novel Stephen Orr , 2008 single work novel ; Breath Tim Winton , 2008 single work novel ; The Empty Beach Peter Corris , 1983 single work novel ; The True Colour of the Sea Robert Drewe , 2018 selected work short story ; Atomic City Sally Breen , 2013 single work novel ; Not Meeting Mr Right Anita Heiss , 2007 single work novel ; After January Nick Earls , 1996 single work novel ; Bluebottle Belinda Castles , 2018 single work novel
Chalk and Cheese Sue Williams , Isla Whitcroft , 2002 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Australian Women's Weekly , October 2002; (p. 80-84)
'Puberty Blues' Recalled, 23 Years On Gillian Lord , 2005 single work column
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 15 January 2005; (p. 9)
Puberty Blues Takes Feminist Generationalism to the Beach Elizabeth McMahon , 2005 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australian Feminist Studies , November vol. 20 no. 48 2005; (p. 281-289)
Australian Beach Culture : Puberty Blues Revisited Nell Schofield , 2005 single work essay
— Appears in: The Sydney Papers , Autumn vol. 17 no. 2 2005; (p. 35-44)
Discusses the resurgence of interest in the cult film Puberty Blues and the way in which beach culture has changed in Australia since it was made in 1981.
y separately published work icon So Many Selves Gabrielle Carey , Sydney : ABC Books , 2006 Z1318254 2006 single work autobiography
Last amended 10 Sep 2021 07:50:46
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