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y separately published work icon The Golden Age single work   novel  
Issue Details: First known date: 2014... 2014 The Golden Age
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'This is a story of resilience, the irrepressible, enduring nature of love, and the fragility of life. From one of Australia's most loved novelists.

'He felt like a pirate landing on an island of little maimed animals. A great wave had swept them up and dumped them here. All of them, like him, stranded, wanting to go home.

'It is 1954 and thirteen-year-old Frank Gold, refugee from wartime Hungary, is learning to walk again after contracting polio in Australia. At The Golden Age Children's Polio Convalescent Hospital in Perth, he sees Elsa, a fellow-patient, and they form a forbidden, passionate bond.

'The Golden Age becomes the little world that reflects the larger one, where everything occurs, love and desire, music, death, and poetry. Where children must learn that they are alone, even within their families.

'Written in Joan London's customary clear-eyed prose, The Golden Age evokes a time past and a yearning for deep connection. It is a rare and precious gem of a book from one of Australia's finest novelists. ' (Publication summary)

Notes

  • Dedication: For my three sisters.
  • Included on the 2014 Prime Minister's reading list.
  • Shortlisted for the Western Australian Premier's 2016 Book Awards (Fiction).

Affiliation Notes

  • Writing Disability in Australia:

    Type of disability Poliomyelitis.
    Type of character Primary.
    Point of view Third person.

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • North Sydney, North Sydney - Lane Cove area, Sydney Northern Suburbs, Sydney, New South Wales,: Random House Australia , 2014 .
      image of person or book cover 572334432789218261.jpg
      Extent: 242p.
      Note/s:
      • Published 1 August 2014
      ISBN: 9781741666441
    • North Sydney, North Sydney - Lane Cove area, Sydney Northern Suburbs, Sydney, New South Wales,: Vintage Australia , 2015 .
      image of person or book cover 7686871488553892684.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 256p.p.
      Note/s:
      • Published August 2015.
      ISBN: 9780857989000
    • c
      United Kingdom (UK),
      c
      Western Europe, Europe,      :       Europa Editions ,       2016 .
      image of person or book cover 1708293424404032403.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 256p.p.
      ISBN: 9781609453329 (ebk), 9781609453268 (pbk)
    • Melbourne, Victoria,: Penguin , 2018 .
      image of person or book cover 7338032148919232200.jpg
      Cover image courtesy of publisher.
      Extent: 256p.
      Note/s:

      • Published March 19, 2018

      ISBN: 9780143790266
Alternative title: 孤岛的诗歌
Transliterated title: Gu dao de shi ge
Language: Chinese
VIEW PUBLICATION DETAILS FOR ALL VERSIONS ()

Related Works

VIEW ALL RELATED WORKS (2)

Works about this Work

Writing, Women and the Australian Novel Tanya Dalziell , 2023 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Cambridge History of the Australian Novel 2023;
A Mesmerizing Masterpiece Amy Marsh , 2017 single work essay
— Appears in: Antipodes , June vol. 31 no. 1 2017; (p. 224-226)

'The routine is punctuated by visits or the occasional glimmer of an event, such as when the Queen drives by on her visit to Australia and the children glimpse "an arm in a long white glove, waving back and forward like something mechanical" (148). On the way here, Mrs. Jewell had even driven down North Street, and through the back window of the ambulance she'd glimpsed her house, small and crouched, blinds pulled down for the heat as if it slept" (132). While the novel's graceful poeticism is the opposite of polemical, a reader cannot help but consider the ongoing debate over vaccines and the reappearance of polio, including cases of polio-like paralysis in the United States.' (Publication abstract)
Who Do You Think You Are? Arna Radovich , 2017 single work short story
— Appears in: Zine West , vol. 17 no. 2017; (p. 52-55)
Margot’s Best of 2016 Margot Hillel , 2016 single work review
— Appears in: Reading Time , December 2016;
— Review of The Bone Sparrow Zana Fraillon , 2016 single work children's fiction ; Wonderlands : The Illustration Art of Robert Ingpen Robert Ingpen , 2016 selected work autobiography picture book ; The Golden Age Joan London , 2014 single work novel
y separately published work icon The Golden Age by Joan London Cecilia Dowling , Melbourne : CAE Book Group , 2015 9461891 2015 single work criticism
Emigre's Tale Written in the Poetic Language of Love Geordie Williamson , 2014 single work review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 16-17 August 2014; (p. 16-17)
— Review of The Golden Age Joan London , 2014 single work novel
The Beauty of Enduring Love in the Time of Polio Golden Age Lives up to Its Name Helen Elliott , 2014 single work review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 23-24 August 2014; (p. 26-27) The Canberra Times , 23 August 2014; (p. 22) The Age , 23 August 2014; (p. 24)
— Review of The Golden Age Joan London , 2014 single work novel
In The Grip of History Blanche Clark , 2014 single work review
— Appears in: The Courier-Mail , 6 September 2014; (p. 19)
— Review of The Golden Age Joan London , 2014 single work novel 'Joan London's new novel evokes the pall that polio cast over 1950s Perth...'
Liminality Kerryn Goldsworthy , 2014 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , September no. 364 2014; (p. 11)
— Review of The Golden Age Joan London , 2014 single work novel
Fully Present, Utterly Connected Tegan Bennett Daylight , 2014 single work review
— Appears in: Sydney Review of Books , October 2014; Critic Swallows Book : Ten Years of the Sydney Review of Books 2023;
— Review of The Golden Age Joan London , 2014 single work novel
Interview : Joan London Jane Sullivan , 2014 single work interview
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 9-10 August 2014; (p. 24-25) The Canberra Times , 9 August 2014; (p. 19) The Age , 8 August 2014; (p. 24) 'For her third novel, the acclaimed writer has revisited '50s Australia and the threat of polio.'
Stella Prize 2015: The Shortlisted Authors on the Stories behind Their Books Emily Bitto , Christine Kenneally , Sofie Laguna , Ellen van Neerven , Maxine Beneba Clarke , Joan London , 2015 single work column
— Appears in: The Guardian Australia , 17 April 2015;
It's Third Novel Lucky as Judges Call London Stephen Romei , 2015 single work column
— Appears in: The Australian , 16 July 2015; (p. 5)
Literary Awards and Joan London’s The Golden Age Elizabeth Webby , 2015 single work column
— Appears in: The Conversation , 23 July 2015;
High Flyer to Author : Literary Winner Rises from the Ashes of Redundancy Phil Brown , 2015 single work column
— Appears in: The Courier-Mail , 10 October 2015; (p. 23)
VIEW ALL WORKS ABOUT (19)

Awards

VIEW ALL AWARDS (13)
Last amended 13 Jul 2021 11:46:16
Subjects:
Settings:
  • Perth, Western Australia,
  • 1954
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