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AbstractHistoryArchive Description
'A ship is wrecked in 1887 near the small country town of Colego. The sea throws up one troubled survivor who claims to know only her name.
'Glenys Osborne's compelling first novel traces the impact of the loss of the Lucy on the town of Colego and how the tidal pull of this event shapes and disturbs those who come after.' (From the publisher's website.)
Notes
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Dedication:
'You mustn't keep pets,' a nameless voice said.../if you aren't prepared to look after them.'/It was a pity nobody had ever said that to God.
Rebecca West, The Birds Fall Down, 1989 [66], London: Virago, p. 197
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
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Empathic Deterritorialisation : Re-Mapping the Postcolonial Novel in Creative Writing Classrooms
2012
single work
criticism
— Appears in: JASAL , vol. 12 no. 1 2012; 'Michael Dodson has commented that the 'repossession of our past is the repossession of ourselves' - yet since the 1980s, the translation of such imperatives within literary and historical colonial archival research has been tightly circumscribed by controversial, often agonistic identity debates. Reflection on the broad emotional imprimateurs guiding intellectual and creative research activity have been muted, variously repressed or backgrounded, voided by (white) shame or tact, and often deferred to Indigenous commentators for framing commentaries. Vehement stoushes between the disciplinary cousins of history and literature have also erupted as part of recent local history and culture wars debates. With hindsight, these seemingly 'emotional' yet supra-rational debates, focusing righteously on entitlement and access to colonial archives, seem to have lacked so-called emotional intelligence and (inter)disciplinary imagination. The arguments of the protagonists have now have been 'tidied away', leaving a subsidence of unscholarly embarrassment in their wake.
I aim to show that despite the problematic inheritance of these public debates, many historians, novelists and cultural critics (Elspeth Probyn, the late Greg Dening, Kate Grenville, Kim Scott and others) have managed to rigorously contest and (re)present colonial archival material without repudiating their own emotional involvement with 'the Australian past' in order to maintain scholarly distance. They have understood, in Marcia Langton's phrase, that 'some of us have lived through it, are living through it. This is not an exercise in historiography alone, and therefore presents problems beyond that of traditional historiography.' My analysis of these writer's commentaries will be contextualised against Langton's idea of intercultural subjectivity, which emphasises a discursive intextuality that can be engaged with equally by black and white artists, critics and writers across the genres. Langton, Dening, Grenville, Scott and others will be shown as thinkers who lead the way in suggesting and/or demonstrating how postcolonial novels can be taught and made.' (Author's abstract)
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Off the Top Shelf
2010
single work
column
— Appears in: The Age , 31 July 2010; (p. 24-25) The judges for the 2010 Age Book of the Year Awards provide a summary for the category for which they are responsible and comments on each shortlisted title. -
Untitled
2010
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , April no. 320 2010; (p. 63)
— Review of Come Inside 2010 single work novel -
Getting off to a Good Start
2010
single work
review
— Appears in: The Age , 13 February 2010; (p. 29)
— Review of Keeping Faith 2010 single work novel ; Come Inside 2010 single work novel ; Love Machine 2010 single work novel
-
Getting off to a Good Start
2010
single work
review
— Appears in: The Age , 13 February 2010; (p. 29)
— Review of Keeping Faith 2010 single work novel ; Come Inside 2010 single work novel ; Love Machine 2010 single work novel -
Untitled
2010
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , April no. 320 2010; (p. 63)
— Review of Come Inside 2010 single work novel -
Off the Top Shelf
2010
single work
column
— Appears in: The Age , 31 July 2010; (p. 24-25) The judges for the 2010 Age Book of the Year Awards provide a summary for the category for which they are responsible and comments on each shortlisted title. -
Empathic Deterritorialisation : Re-Mapping the Postcolonial Novel in Creative Writing Classrooms
2012
single work
criticism
— Appears in: JASAL , vol. 12 no. 1 2012; 'Michael Dodson has commented that the 'repossession of our past is the repossession of ourselves' - yet since the 1980s, the translation of such imperatives within literary and historical colonial archival research has been tightly circumscribed by controversial, often agonistic identity debates. Reflection on the broad emotional imprimateurs guiding intellectual and creative research activity have been muted, variously repressed or backgrounded, voided by (white) shame or tact, and often deferred to Indigenous commentators for framing commentaries. Vehement stoushes between the disciplinary cousins of history and literature have also erupted as part of recent local history and culture wars debates. With hindsight, these seemingly 'emotional' yet supra-rational debates, focusing righteously on entitlement and access to colonial archives, seem to have lacked so-called emotional intelligence and (inter)disciplinary imagination. The arguments of the protagonists have now have been 'tidied away', leaving a subsidence of unscholarly embarrassment in their wake.
I aim to show that despite the problematic inheritance of these public debates, many historians, novelists and cultural critics (Elspeth Probyn, the late Greg Dening, Kate Grenville, Kim Scott and others) have managed to rigorously contest and (re)present colonial archival material without repudiating their own emotional involvement with 'the Australian past' in order to maintain scholarly distance. They have understood, in Marcia Langton's phrase, that 'some of us have lived through it, are living through it. This is not an exercise in historiography alone, and therefore presents problems beyond that of traditional historiography.' My analysis of these writer's commentaries will be contextualised against Langton's idea of intercultural subjectivity, which emphasises a discursive intextuality that can be engaged with equally by black and white artists, critics and writers across the genres. Langton, Dening, Grenville, Scott and others will be shown as thinkers who lead the way in suggesting and/or demonstrating how postcolonial novels can be taught and made.' (Author's abstract)
Awards
- 2011 shortlisted Kibble Literary Awards — Nita May Dobbie Award
- 2011 winner Barbara Jefferis Award
- 2010 shortlisted The Age Book of the Year Award — Fiction Prize
- 2010 shortlisted South East Asia and South Pacific Region — Best First Book
Last amended 9 Feb 2021 10:41:20
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- Country towns,
- 1880s
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