AustLit
Latest Issues
AbstractHistoryArchive Description
'In this luminous book of new stories, John Kinsella drops us seamlessly into the worlds of men, women and children at pivotal moments in their lives. In the title story, a husband who has lost his wife plans to destroy the old-growth bush she loved and escape to the city, with alarming consequences. Elsewhere, racism at a small town supermarket is resisted through friendship; in an act of kindness a frightening stranger turns up in a family's woodshed; a home-made telephone transmits a dark truth; a theatre director is seduced into the world of an obsessive rabbit trapper; and two sisters find their lives thrown out of kilter by a charismatic junkie.
'This is a book of city and country, of challenge and threat, of sobriety and loss of control, but also of hope and beauty. Wandoos hold ‘the sunset cold and warm at once in their powdery barks’ as Kinsella captures the intensity of place, and the complexities and strangeness of human behaviour with wonder and pathos.' (Publication summary)
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
-
Short Fiction Short Nation : The Ideologies of Australian Realism
2018
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Australian Literary Studies , November vol. 33 no. 3 2018;'This paper examines the ways in which short stories have interacted with different national contexts throughout the history of modern Australia, endorsing and resisting what Fredric Jameson calls the symbolic resolution of narrative, and subsequently considers the processes by which certain critical trends and interpretive emphases can illuminate or obscure that interaction through comparative readings of texts by Henry Lawson and John Kinsella.'
Source: Abstract.
-
Dark Tales Littered with Broken Family Units
2017
single work
essay
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 11 February 2017; (p. 19) 'With a cover that shows a cross-section of tree trunks, the geometric cover design of John Kinsella’s short-story collection Old Growth is simple but mesmerising, like a pop art illusion. The rings denote arboreal age but also suggest layers of meaning. With a body of work that includes poetry, novels, essays, plays and memoir, Western Australia-based Kinsella is comfortable with wearing multiple hats.' (Introduction) -
'Old Growth' by John Kinsella
2017
single work
essay
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , April no. 390 2017; 'John Kinsella’s short stories are the closest thing Australians have to Ron Rash’s tales of washed-out rural America, where weakened and solitary men stand guard over their sad patch of compromised integrity in a world of inescapable poverty, trailer homes, uninsured sickness, and amphetamine wastage. Poe’s adventure stories and internally collapsing characters lightly haunt the short fiction of Rash and Kinsella. Like Rash, Kinsella can write acute and unforgettable stories about threatened masculinity. Kinsella’s latest collection, Old Growth, closely follows his 2016 work Crow’s Breath in subject and design. Although he is best known as a fine poet, these stories add considerably to his stature as a prose writer.' (Introduction) -
John Kinsella : Old Growth
2017
single work
essay
— Appears in: The Newtown Review of Books , April 2017; 'John Kinsella’s short stories reveal flashes of beauty amid the bleakness.' -
[Review Essay] Old Growth
2017
single work
essay
review
— Appears in: The Saturday Paper , 11 February 2017; 'One of Australia’s leading poets, as well as professor of sustainability and literature at Curtin University, John Kinsella has stated that the “purpose” of his poetry is “to draw attention to the damage being done and to show that we are all implicated”. It’s pretty clear that he has hewn from the same brief in writing the stories that make up this collection.' (Introduction)
-
[Review Essay] Old Growth
2017
single work
essay
review
— Appears in: The Saturday Paper , 11 February 2017; 'One of Australia’s leading poets, as well as professor of sustainability and literature at Curtin University, John Kinsella has stated that the “purpose” of his poetry is “to draw attention to the damage being done and to show that we are all implicated”. It’s pretty clear that he has hewn from the same brief in writing the stories that make up this collection.' (Introduction) -
John Kinsella : Old Growth
2017
single work
essay
— Appears in: The Newtown Review of Books , April 2017; 'John Kinsella’s short stories reveal flashes of beauty amid the bleakness.' -
'Old Growth' by John Kinsella
2017
single work
essay
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , April no. 390 2017; 'John Kinsella’s short stories are the closest thing Australians have to Ron Rash’s tales of washed-out rural America, where weakened and solitary men stand guard over their sad patch of compromised integrity in a world of inescapable poverty, trailer homes, uninsured sickness, and amphetamine wastage. Poe’s adventure stories and internally collapsing characters lightly haunt the short fiction of Rash and Kinsella. Like Rash, Kinsella can write acute and unforgettable stories about threatened masculinity. Kinsella’s latest collection, Old Growth, closely follows his 2016 work Crow’s Breath in subject and design. Although he is best known as a fine poet, these stories add considerably to his stature as a prose writer.' (Introduction) -
Dark Tales Littered with Broken Family Units
2017
single work
essay
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 11 February 2017; (p. 19) 'With a cover that shows a cross-section of tree trunks, the geometric cover design of John Kinsella’s short-story collection Old Growth is simple but mesmerising, like a pop art illusion. The rings denote arboreal age but also suggest layers of meaning. With a body of work that includes poetry, novels, essays, plays and memoir, Western Australia-based Kinsella is comfortable with wearing multiple hats.' (Introduction) -
Short Fiction Short Nation : The Ideologies of Australian Realism
2018
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Australian Literary Studies , November vol. 33 no. 3 2018;'This paper examines the ways in which short stories have interacted with different national contexts throughout the history of modern Australia, endorsing and resisting what Fredric Jameson calls the symbolic resolution of narrative, and subsequently considers the processes by which certain critical trends and interpretive emphases can illuminate or obscure that interaction through comparative readings of texts by Henry Lawson and John Kinsella.'
Source: Abstract.
