AustLit
Latest Issues
AbstractHistoryArchive Description
''When a succession of murders shatters the tranquillityof an East Anglian seafaring town, irrational suspicion spreads like a contagious plague. In the murky pubs and on the cobbled street corners gossip is rife. Could Frank de Vere have shot his own wife through the head? Could Greg be the mad-dog killer of his brother?'
Source: Blurb.
Notes
-
Dedication: For William Grono - twenty years after 'The Nedlands Monster'
Contents
- Introduction, single work criticism
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Other Formats
- Also braille. Also sound recording.
Works about this Work
-
Autobiography of a Sickness
2023
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Westerly , vol. 68 no. 1 2023; (p. 128-139) 'A disclosure: before being asked to do this lecture, I had never read a word of Stow. When I was nineteen, I left Western Australia to study in Singapore. When I graduated, I stayed. If leaving was an intentional turning away from a cultural lineage, or canon, then staying was a decisive choice towards another. Reading, after all, is political—more political, perhaps, than writing itself. Later, when I did return, and began to write, it was the Queer Singaporean and Singapore-based writers and artists I had encountered who formed my creative ancestry and who I felt I might exist in conversation with, if I were to exist in this space at all. But any residence forms lineages, and in returning to live on this land—where I hold legal citizenship, enforced by the world's dependence on borders and the nation-state, and where I was born—authorial ancestries are free to entangle, be speculated over and perhaps even transformed.' (Introduction)
-
Telling Spaces: Reading Randolph Stow’s Expatriation
2019
single work
criticism
— Appears in: JASAL , vol. 19 no. 1 2019;'Randolph Stow’s expatriate novels, Visitants (1979), The Girl Green as Elderflower (1980) and The Suburbs of Hell (1984) are often read as emerging from specific experiences in Stow’s expatriate life, beyond Australia—the two former as his ‘fever’ novels, informed by his work and illness in the Trobriand Islands and subsequent recovery in England; and the latter carrying the experience of an event from Stow’s Australian past into the setting of Harwich, England, where he lived from the early 1980s until his death in 2010. I have discussed elsewhere the overt connection in The Suburbs of Hell to Australia (Noske, ‘Chatter’), but it is also possible to read in the earlier texts connections with Stow’s life in Australia, particularly in his representation of landscape. Reading The Girl Green as Elderflower in this context opens interesting possibilities in understanding the spaces constructed within. This article will argue that Stow’s writing in the novel presents a complex transnationalism, one which challenges extant critical responses to Stow’s expatriation. It reads Stow’s place-making as embracing a fluidity that allows him to actively respond to postcolonialism as a global phenomenon and in doing so, examine Australian spaces through the lens of expatriation.' (Publication abstract)
-
‘Chatter about Harriet’ : Randolph Stow’s Place-making and 'The Suburbs of Hell'
2018
single work
criticism
— Appears in: JASAL , vol. 1 no. 18 2018;'Randolph Stow’s ‘English’ novels, The Girl Green as Elderflower (1980) and The Suburbs of Hell (1984) offer complex representations of space in text, which layer narrative and memory each over the other to inform the known setting. The resulting conceptualisation of place holds at its centre a transnational fluidity, which, when combined with the overt textual links between the stories and Stow’s own life, suggests a unique practice of place-making within his writing as an oeuvre. Reading Stow’s The Suburbs of Hell along these lines suggests it has a greater connection to a more general consideration of Australian narratives of place that might be assumed given its English setting. But what is specifically functioning within Stow’s writing practice to create places which embody this transnational mutability? This paper will examine Stow’s practice in writing for the purpose of understanding the manner in which the text constructs its setting, and whether or not reading these connections between Stow’s life and the text are productive of a cognizance of place-making in terms of writing practice.' (Publication abstract)
-
Well Read
2015
single work
review
— Appears in: The Advertiser , 19 September 2015; (p. 28)
— Review of To the Islands 1958 single work novel ; The Girl Green as Elderflower 1980 single work novel ; Visitants 1979 single work novel ; The Suburbs of Hell : A Novel 1984 single work novel ; Tourmaline 1963 single work novel -
Like a Thief in the Night
2015
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , September no. 374 2015; (p. 67-68, 70)
— Review of The Suburbs of Hell : A Novel 1984 single work novel
-
The Last Mystery
1984
single work
review
— Appears in: The Adelaide Review , September no. 6 1984; (p. 18)
— Review of The Suburbs of Hell : A Novel 1984 single work novel -
Malouf and Stow
1984
single work
review
— Appears in: Overland , December no. 97 1984; (p. 74-75)
— Review of Harland's Half Acre 1984 single work novel ; The Suburbs of Hell : A Novel 1984 single work novel -
All Our Villages Have Their Horrors
1984
single work
review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 30 June 1984; (p. 40)
— Review of The Suburbs of Hell : A Novel 1984 single work novel -
Stow Brings Evil Back into Fashion
1984
single work
review
— Appears in: The Bulletin , 31 July vol. 105 no. 5427 1984; (p. 59-60)
— Review of The Suburbs of Hell : A Novel 1984 single work novel -
The Ultimate Thief - Death
1984
single work
review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 28-29 July 1984; (p. 14)
— Review of The Suburbs of Hell : A Novel 1984 single work novel -
Vanishing Wunderkind
2009
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , September no. 314 2009; (p. 29-31) -
The Australian Horror Novel Since 1950
2012
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Sold by the Millions : Australia's Bestsellers 2012; (p. 112-127) According to James Doig the horror genre 'was overlooked by the popular circulating libraries in Australia.' In this chapter he observes that this 'marginalization of horror reflects both the trepidation felt by the conservative library system towards 'penny dreadfuls,' and the fact that horror had limited popular appeal with the British (and Australian) reading public.' Doig concludes that there is 'no Australian author of horror novels with the same commercial cachet' as authors of fantasy or science fiction. He proposes that if Australian horror fiction wants to compete successfully 'in the long-term it needs to develop a flourishing and vibrant small press contingent prepared to nurture new talent' like the USA and UK small presses.' (Editor's foreword xii) -
Grievous Music : Randolph Stow's Middle Ages
2011
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Australian Literary Studies , October - November vol. 26 no. 3-4 2011; (p. 102-114) -
Swamp to Supermarket : Suburbia in Recent Western Australian Fiction
1990
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Westerly , December vol. 35 no. 4 1990; (p. 93-97) -
Randolph Stow
Candida Baker
(interviewer),
1989
single work
biography
interview
— Appears in: Yacker 3 : Australian Writers Talk About Their Work 1989; (p. 284-300)
Awards
- 1985 shortlisted Ditmar Awards — Best Novel
-
cEngland,ccUnited Kingdom (UK),cWestern Europe, Europe,
-
cEngland,ccUnited Kingdom (UK),cWestern Europe, Europe,