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AbstractHistoryArchive Description
'It’s the Great Depression. Six-year-old PS is an orphan. He lives in Sydney with his Aunt Lila. But all that is about to change. Now his Aunt Vanessa has decided to take proper care of him.
'Careful, He Might Hear You is one of the most extraordinary portraits of childhood in Australian fiction.' (Publication summary : Text Classics)
Adaptations
-
form
y
Careful, He Might Hear You
( dir. Carl Schultz
)
Sydney
:
Syme International Productions
,
1983
Z1359519
1983
single work
film/TV
Set in the Depression, the story follows the bitter struggle between two sisters over the custody of their orphaned nephew. Each determined to have the boy, both women resort to deceitful manipulation and cruel lies.
- Careful, He Might Hear You Ron Creager (composer), 1999 single work musical theatre
Notes
-
Dedication: For H. S. L.
-
Fictionalised autobiography.
Contents
- Introduction, essay
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Other Formats
- Also braille, sound recording, large print.
Works about this Work
-
Books to Read through Coronavirus Lockdown as Recommended by Professional Readers
2020
single work
column
— Appears in: ABC News [Online] , May 2020;'We may be entering the dreaded third quarter of isolation, when things start getting a bit weird and a little too much to bear.'
-
Films Hollywood Almost Made about Australia
2019
single work
essay
— Appears in: FilmInk , 14 February 2019; -
‘The Writers’ Picnic’ : Genealogy and Homographesis in the Fiction of Sumner Locke Elliott
2018
single work
criticism
— Appears in: JASAL , vol. 17 no. 2 2018;'Like many mid-century authors, Sumner Locke-Elliott fled Australia for more welcoming shores. From his first novel Careful He Might Hear You (1963), Locke-Elliott laid the foundations for a fictional self-authorship that suffused his writing with biographic detail and themes of origin, place and time. Despite his long absence from Australia and his naturalisation as an American citizen, his final novel and fictional coming out in Fairyland (1990) returns readers to the homophobic Sydney of his childhood. This blurring of biographic and fictional detail within the representational space of childhood creates an embodied literary network that connects Australia of the 1930s & 1940s and New York of the 1980s & 1990s, merging literary corpus and authorial life. Taking up this sense of presence, absence and connection, I argue that Locke-Elliot’s representation of childhood is a nostalgic point of interface that generatively refigures his oeuvre as an embodied queer and transnational literary network.' (Publication abstract)
-
'But Even Memory Is Fiction' : The (Fictional) Life and (Self ) Writing of Sumner Locke Elliott
2016
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Southerly , vol. 75 no. 2 2016; (p. 172-192) 'Shaun Bell recuperates Lock-Elliott from his common status as footnote or aside in accounts of literary networks, to identify common figures and set pirces across his oeuvre, as a ways of reading of his 'construction of self through nostalgia, art and life.' (Editorial, 7) -
[Review] Careful, He Might Hear You
2012
single work
review
— Appears in: The Lifted Brow , no. 14 2012; (p. 26)
— Review of Careful, He Might Hear You 1963 single work novel
-
[Review] Careful, He Might Hear You
2012
single work
review
— Appears in: The Lifted Brow , no. 14 2012; (p. 26)
— Review of Careful, He Might Hear You 1963 single work novel -
Two Departures
1964
single work
review
— Appears in: Nation , 8 February 1964; (p. 23)
— Review of Light and Shadow Alec Braizblatt (translator), 1963 single work novel ; Careful, He Might Hear You 1963 single work novel -
Recent Novels
1964
single work
review
— Appears in: Overland , Autumn no. 29 1964; (p. 57-58)
— Review of Hopeton High : A Novel 1963 single work novel ; The Man Whose Name Was Mud 1963 single work novel ; Careful, He Might Hear You 1963 single work novel ; Shake the Golden Bough : A Novel 1963 single work novel ; Son of Mars : A Novel 1963 single work novel ; Green Gold 1963 single work novel -
[Review] Careful, He Might Hear You and Shake the Golden Bough
1963
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , October vol. 2 no. 12 1963; (p. 193)
— Review of Shake the Golden Bough : A Novel 1963 single work novel ; Careful, He Might Hear You 1963 single work novel -
y
[Conversation with Sumner Locke Elliott]
Hazel de Berg
(interviewer),
1970
Z1294207
1970
single work
interview
Locke Elliott speaks of his studies; his family; about writing one act plays; his decision to become a writer and not an actor; his return to Australia in 1950; writing Rusty Bugles; writing in New York (late 1950s) for television; the changing role of the television writer; his first novel Careful He Might Hear You and the ensuing success.
-
Classics Released
2012
single work
column
— Appears in: The Sun-Herald , 22 January 2012; (p. 7) -
Literary Heroes Forgotten
2012
single work
column
— Appears in: The Sun-Herald , 22 January 2012; (p. 9) -
Sumner Locke Elliott
Candida Baker
(interviewer),
1987
single work
biography
interview
— Appears in: Yacker 2 : Australian Writers Talk About Their Work 1987; (p. 42-70) -
Careful, He's Made Himself Heard at Last
1990
single work
criticism
biography
— Appears in: The Australian Magazine , 16-17 June 1990; (p. 4)
Awards
- 1963 winner Miles Franklin Literary Award
- Sydney, New South Wales,
- 1920s
- 1930s