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'Lola and Brownie are too young to be in love. That’s the view of the world in the 1950s and their lives are taken over by their mothers and welfare. But Brownie and Lola are determined to be together and show they are capable of handling life. Survival on their own terms is a tough road to travel but also a triumph.'
(Penguin, 1986)
'At the end of two weeks of agonising waiting Lola knew she was pregnant.
Lola and Brownie were just kids - but old enough to know what the probing fingers of desire in their awakening bodies meant…
The delinquents is their story - a story of youthful passion turned into tragedy by the demands of adult-made rules. For Brownie they spelt disillusion and the dissolute pleasures of a man’s world… for Lola the degradation of the streets.'
(Panther, 1964)
Adaptations
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form
y
The Delinquents ( dir. Chris Thomson ) 1989 Australia : Silver Lining Entertainment Village Roadshow Delinquents Pty Ltd , 1989 Z1415675 1989 single work film/TV crime In a small, conservative, Australian town in the mid-1950s, Brownie and Lola fall in love. Both are well under the age of consent, and their parents attempt to break up the relationship. Brownie and Lola rebel against their elders, and embark on a life of petty crime.
Notes
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Produced as an Australian film, The Delinquents, in 1989 and directed by Chris Thomson.
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'Several Australian publishers turned down the manuscript before a literary agent in London found a publisher for it in Victor Gollancz who also published Down by the Dockside in 1963. Deirdre Cash said in 1962 that 'Australian publishers won't touch a book unless it builds up Australians as great heroes.' (Glenys Smith Brodie's Notes on Criena Rohan's The Delinquents (1994): 6).
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Other Formats
- Also braille, sound recording, large print.
Works about this Work
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The Novel at Arms : Rereading Australian Mid-century Realism
2023
single work
criticism
— Appears in: The Cambridge History of the Australian Novel 2023; -
Sharon Faylene and the Woman from the Welfare : Heterosexual Fulfilment and Modernist Form in Criena Rohan's The Delinquents
2016
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Queensland Review , vol. 23 no. 2 2016; (p. 196-206) 'Criena Rohan's The Delinquents (1962) has always had a cult appeal — in 1989 it was made into a movie, starring Kylie Minogue as Lola and an unknown American as Brownie — and was recently reissued as a Text Classic. A short novel written by a writer who did not have a long career, and published between more commonly scrutinised periods of Australian fiction, The Delinquents is still, however, liminal. The Delinquents is very much a novel of rebellion and subversion, as its teenage protagonists, Brownie Hansen and Lola Lovell, pursue their love over the opposition of both sets of parents the police, the bourgeois consensus and everybody who is not them. By the fiery smoldering of its passion, though, their love sustains them and they emerge at the end, buffeted but united and resilient. This article argues that Rohan's book represents a Queensland iteration of a ‘regional modernism’.' (Introduction) -
Labour in Vain: the Forgotten Novels of Australia’s Radical Women
2015
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Overland [Online] , June 2015; 'Not a month goes by in academia or in literary culture without a debate about Australia’s literary canon and calls for a more inclusive list. Undoubtedly our canon should include more voices from women, the LGBTI community and Indigenous Australians. But I’d like to throw forward another undervalued and underrepresented genre: women’s political agency and activism – and this year might be a good time to acknowledge it.' (Author's introduction) -
Sex and the City : New Novels by Women and Middlebrow Culture at Mid-Century
2012
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Australian Literary Studies , October-November vol. 27 no. 3/4 2012; (p. 1-12) 'Central to developments in Australian literature during the period from the end of Second World War until the mid-1960s - what might be called the 'long 1950s' - was the emergence of the kind of modernist novel written by Patrick White as the benchmark of modern fiction. This was the outcome of a struggle among opinion-makers in the literary field, which during this period came to be dominated for the first time by academic critics. They, by and large, favoured the new forms of postwar modernism and rejected that literary nationalism which had drawn the loyalty of most influential writers during the 1930s and 940s.' (Author's introduction) -
Working-Class Youth Subcultures : Resistance and Expolitation in Criena Rohan's The Delinquents and Mudrooroo's Wild Cat Falling
2010
single work
criticism
— Appears in: JASAL , no. 10 2010; 'Of the small group of Australian novels written from beneath the shiny surface of late 50s and early 60s youth styles - reports from underground, stamped with 'insider' authority - none observed the intellectual uncertainties of a new order more acutely than Criena Rohan's The Delinquents (1962) and Mudrooroo's Wild Cat Falling (1965). Both hinged on an intriguing paradox: on the one hand they eagerly accepted that youth subcultures were the source of new identities, less welded to traditional class alignments; but they also contained some of the darkest interpretations of the relationship between youth and the culture industries which provided the raw material for subcultural styles. Their radical depiction of youth's energy and popular culture's allure was undercut by troubled equivocations, or doubts, that youth could creatively use mass popular culture to resist or undermine the power of the dominant capitalist order that produced it.' (Author's abstract)
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The Delinquents
1962
single work
review
— Appears in: Realist Writer , November no. 10 1962; (p. 10)
— Review of The Delinquents 1962 single work novel -
Australian Fiction : 1962
1962
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , October vol. 1 no. 12 1962; (p. 155)
— Review of A Bachelor's Children : Short Stories 1962 selected work short story ; The Delinquents 1962 single work novel -
Growing Up : Young Ladies' Trials Through the Ages
1990
single work
review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 13 January 1990; (p. 62)
— Review of A Cartload of Clay : A Novel 1971 single work novel ; The Delinquents 1962 single work novel ; Clean Straw for Nothing : A Novel 1969 single work novel -
Fiction Chronicle
1962
single work
review
— Appears in: Meanjin Quarterly , September vol. 21 no. 3 1962; (p. 377-380)
— Review of Don't Speak to Strangers 1962 single work novel ; The Delinquents 1962 single work novel -
Our Short Fiction
1986
single work
review
— Appears in: The Age , 1 March 1986; (p. 13)
— Review of Transgressions : Australian Writing Now 1986 anthology short story ; The Delinquents 1962 single work novel -
Working-Class Youth Subcultures : Resistance and Expolitation in Criena Rohan's The Delinquents and Mudrooroo's Wild Cat Falling
2010
single work
criticism
— Appears in: JASAL , no. 10 2010; 'Of the small group of Australian novels written from beneath the shiny surface of late 50s and early 60s youth styles - reports from underground, stamped with 'insider' authority - none observed the intellectual uncertainties of a new order more acutely than Criena Rohan's The Delinquents (1962) and Mudrooroo's Wild Cat Falling (1965). Both hinged on an intriguing paradox: on the one hand they eagerly accepted that youth subcultures were the source of new identities, less welded to traditional class alignments; but they also contained some of the darkest interpretations of the relationship between youth and the culture industries which provided the raw material for subcultural styles. Their radical depiction of youth's energy and popular culture's allure was undercut by troubled equivocations, or doubts, that youth could creatively use mass popular culture to resist or undermine the power of the dominant capitalist order that produced it.' (Author's abstract) -
Shelf Life [25 November 1989]
1989
single work
criticism
— Appears in: The Age , 25 November 1989; (p. 11) -
A Life Worthy of Her Fiction
1989
single work
criticism
biography
— Appears in: The Advertiser Magazine , 23 December 1989; (p. 3,5) -
Foreword : Best Sellers Out of Print - In Triplicate
1989
single work
criticism
— Appears in: The Australian Magazine , 30-31 December 1989; (p. 6) -
Criena Rohan Comes Home to Her Own
1993
single work
biography
— Appears in: Tirra Lirra , Spring vol. 4 no. 1 1993; (p. 7-9,47)
- Brisbane, Queensland,
- Spring Hill, Brisbane City, Brisbane, Queensland,
- 1940s
- 1950s
- 1960s