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AbstractHistoryArchive Description
'The debut of a major Australian writer, The Night Guest is a mesmerising novel about trust, love, dependence, and the fear that the things you think you know may become the things you're least sure about.
One morning an elderly widow called Ruth wakes thinking a tiger has been in her seaside house. Later that day a formidable woman called Frida arrives, looking as if she's blown in from the sea, but who has in fact come to care for Ruth.
Frida and the tiger: both are here to stay, and neither is what they seem. How far can Ruth trust them? And as memories of childhood in Fiji press upon her with increasing urgency, how far can she trust herself?
The Night Guest, Fiona McFarlane's hypnotic first novel, is no simple tale of a crime committed and a mystery solved. This is a tale that soars above its own suspense to tell us, with exceptional grace and beauty, about ageing, love, power and perception; about how the past can colonise the present, and about things (and people) in places they shouldn't be. Above all, it's a brilliantly involving story about two very particular women.' (Publisher's blurb)
Notes
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Dedication: For my parents
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Other Formats
- Sound recording.
- Large print.
Works about this Work
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Home Away from Home : The Aged Care Facility as Transnational Space
2021
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Transnational Spaces : India and Australia 2021; (p. 195-210)'The Australian government has recently received the report of a Royal Commission into the nation’s management of aged care. This followed media scandals about physical and sexual abuse, neglect and inadequate controls during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. Though all discussion occurred within a national context, this chapter shows that the aged-care ‘industry’ is a space of transnational flows, both in the export of business and models and in the internal movements of staff who are frequently unskilled immigrant labour. The chapter notes some Australian-Indian links and looks at how ‘the old folks’ home’ as heterotopic space has been represented in Australian literature.'
Source: Abstract.
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Strange Bodies. Dementia and Legaciesof Colonialism in Fiona McFarlane’sThe Night Guest
2021
single work
criticism
— Appears in: The Politics of Dementia : Forgetting and Remembering the Violent Past in Literature, Film and Graphic Narratives 2021; (p. 175-188) Fiona McFarlane’s novel The Night Guest(2010) tells the story of Ruth Field, an older woman living alone in an isolated house by the sea who believes that a mysterious tiger is visiting her home at night. Although the novel takes place in contemporary Australia, Ruth spent her childhood in colonial Fiji as the daughter of white missionaries, and her memories of this time begin increasingly to infiltrate her daily life. Ruth starts to become unwell and confused as the novel unfolds, and although the text never names dementia specifically, it is evident that she is experiencing many of the symptoms commonly associated with this cognitive disorder, for example, difficulties with memory and recall, losing her way in familiar places and becoming easily distracted.1By keeping this condition latent in the text, however, McFarlane’s novel asks us to reflect on the ways that as readers we might bring certain kinds of assumptions to bear on older bodies when we encounter them in texts. This incentive to reflect on our own biases is made compelling by the novel’s depiction of two key relation-ships: the one between Ruth and the visiting tiger of the title, and also Ruth’s connection to her live-in carer, Frida, whose presence is alternately comforting and abusive' (Introduction) -
Driving, Not Losing, the Plot : Narrative Patterns in Implicit and Explicit Fictional Representations of Dementia
2017
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Open Cultural Studies , January vol. 1 no. 1 2017; (p. 55-65)'This essay examines representations of dementia in literary works. It draws a distinction between those representations of dementia symptoms that can be understood as implicit and those that can be understood as explicit. Whereas implicit representations do not treat dementia as a distinct, clearly identified disorder, they nonetheless display a certain similarity to the explicitly medicalized discussion of dementia symptoms. This similarity lies in the fact that dementia symptoms are used to drive forward the narrative action. The essay traces this pattern by analysing different literary works with this feature in common and discusses the significance of this narrative’s dynamic potential for the plasticity of cultural narratives of dementia and old age.' (Publication abstract)
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House Style
2016
single work
column
— Appears in: The Saturday Paper , 2 April 2016; -
The Voss Literary Prize Celebrates a Fine New Australian Novel
2014
single work
column
— Appears in: The Conversation , 21 November 2014;
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Drift into Dotage Unleashes Strong Felines
2013
single work
review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 24-25 August 2013; (p. 19)
— Review of The Night Guest 2013 single work novel -
Tiger Visits Come with Old Age
2013
single work
review
— Appears in: The West Australian , 27 August 2013; (p. 7)
— Review of The Night Guest 2013 single work novel -
[Review] The Night Guest
2013
single work
review
— Appears in: The Monthly , August no. 92 2013; (p. 56)
— Review of The Night Guest 2013 single work novel -
The Night Guest
2013
single work
review
— Appears in: The Courier-Mail , 21-22 September 2013; (p. 20)
— Review of The Night Guest 2013 single work novel -
Fear and Menace Flourish in Dementia's Unreliable World
2013
single work
review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 12 October 2013; (p. 28-29)
— Review of The Night Guest 2013 single work novel -
Interview : Fiona McFarlane
Interview : Fiona McFarlane;
A Journey through the Mind;
The Mind Stalked by Time
2013
single work
interview
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 21-22 September 2013; (p. 32-33) The Canberra Times , 21 September 2013; The Age , 21 September 2013; (p. 28-29) -
Memories and Memoirs are High on Stella's List
2014
single work
column
— Appears in: The Australian , 21 March 2014; (p. 5) -
Franklin Short List Revealed
2014
single work
column
— Appears in: The West Australian , 20 May 2014; (p. 7) -
In the Barbara Jefferis Award, a Novel about Sexual Desire among the Elderly Ties for First Prize
2014
single work
column
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 7 November 2014; The Age , 7 November 2014; The Canberra Times , 7 November 2014; -
The Voss Literary Prize Celebrates a Fine New Australian Novel
2014
single work
column
— Appears in: The Conversation , 21 November 2014;
Awards
- 2014 winner Voss Literary Prize
- 2014 shortlisted Readings Prizes — Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction
- 2014 shortlisted Prime Minister's Literary Awards — Fiction
- 2014 joint winner Barbara Jefferis Award With Sea Hearts.
- 2014 shortlisted Guardian First Book Award