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'It's the summer of 1976, and the winds of change are blowing through the small town of Repentance on the edge of the Great Dividing Range. The old families cut timber, but the new settlers have a different perspective on the natural order and humankind's place in the scheme of things.
'Linda Curtis is the latest blow-in to the old Parmenter farm, where the hippies have gathered and a protest is being planned. She's new to the district, but she shares a past with the protestors' militant leader. Yet not all their secrets are shared.
'From behind the counter of her father's shop, thirteen-year-old Joanne Parmenter struggles to make sense of what's happening to her town. Assigned to work on a local-history project with one of the hippie kids, she has chosen to avoid anything contentious and research the dying dairy industry, while her mother succumbs to cancer in the house behind her.
'Sandy Mitchell runs the sawmill that employs half the town. His son and heir is being lured to the city, and his first grandchild is on the way. In the story he learnt as a boy and has never sought to question, he now finds himself cast as the bad man.
'The bush keeps its own rhythms, but soon everything will be disturbed. Either the old growth is coming down or the loggers have to be stopped. And although not everyone agrees on tactics, no one will escape being drawn into the coming confrontation.' (Publication summary)
Notes
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Dedication: 'In memory of my parents, Stan and Vilma'
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Epigraph: "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth." - Genesis 1:26
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Epigraph:
"We are stardust
Billion year old carbon
We are golden
Caught in the devil's bargain
And we've got to get ourselves
Back to the garden."
-Joni Mitchell
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
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Repentance by Alison Gibbs Review : Hippies and Loggers Collide in 1970s Outback
2021
single work
review
— Appears in: The Guardian Australia , 22 January 2021;
— Review of Repentance 2021 single work novel -
Taking the Temperature : Four New Novels
2021
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , April no. 430 2021; (p. 34-35)
— Review of The Price of Two Sparrows 2021 single work novel ; Repentance 2021 single work novel ; Low Expectations 2021 single work novel ; Friends and Dark Shapes 2021 single work novel 'To survey concurrent works of art is to take the temperature of a particular time, in a particular place. And the temperature of the time and place in these four début Australian novels? It is searching for a sense of belonging, and, at least in part, it’s coming out of western Sydney in the wake of the 2005 Cronulla riots. All four novels are set in New South Wales, three of them in suburban Sydney. Each is concerned with who is entitled to land and the stories we tell while making ourselves at home in the world, sometimes at the expense of others.' (Introduction) -
Alison Gibbs Repentance
2021
single work
review
— Appears in: The Saturday Paper , 30 January - 5 February 2021;
— Review of Repentance 2021 single work novel'It’s 1976, and in the small town of Repentance, on the edge of the Great Dividing Range in New South Wales, the new hippies and the old families are about to collide over the issue of logging old-growth forests. Repentance, Alison Gibbs’s debut novel, takes as its focus a few key characters, and the larger drama of the township unravels around the ins and outs of their lives towards a fittingly moving denouement.' (Introduction)
-
Alison Gibbs Repentance
2021
single work
review
— Appears in: The Saturday Paper , 30 January - 5 February 2021;
— Review of Repentance 2021 single work novel'It’s 1976, and in the small town of Repentance, on the edge of the Great Dividing Range in New South Wales, the new hippies and the old families are about to collide over the issue of logging old-growth forests. Repentance, Alison Gibbs’s debut novel, takes as its focus a few key characters, and the larger drama of the township unravels around the ins and outs of their lives towards a fittingly moving denouement.' (Introduction)
-
Taking the Temperature : Four New Novels
2021
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , April no. 430 2021; (p. 34-35)
— Review of The Price of Two Sparrows 2021 single work novel ; Repentance 2021 single work novel ; Low Expectations 2021 single work novel ; Friends and Dark Shapes 2021 single work novel 'To survey concurrent works of art is to take the temperature of a particular time, in a particular place. And the temperature of the time and place in these four début Australian novels? It is searching for a sense of belonging, and, at least in part, it’s coming out of western Sydney in the wake of the 2005 Cronulla riots. All four novels are set in New South Wales, three of them in suburban Sydney. Each is concerned with who is entitled to land and the stories we tell while making ourselves at home in the world, sometimes at the expense of others.' (Introduction) -
Repentance by Alison Gibbs Review : Hippies and Loggers Collide in 1970s Outback
2021
single work
review
— Appears in: The Guardian Australia , 22 January 2021;
— Review of Repentance 2021 single work novel
- Great Dividing Range,
- 1976
