AustLit logo
image of person or book cover 2357743340591663351.jpg
This image has been sourced from online.
y separately published work icon Three Dollars single work   novel  
Issue Details: First known date: 1998... 1998 Three Dollars
The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.

Latest Issues

AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'At once humorous and dramatic, Three Dollars is about Eddie, an honest, compassionate man who finds himself, at the age of 38, with a wife, a child and three dollars. How did he get that way? And who is Amanda? He cared about people; he was, Amanda notwithstanding, a good husband, father and son. At any other time the world would have smiled on him. But this was the nineties and the world valued other things. Three Dollars chronicles the present breach of the social contract and its effect on a home near you. It is a brilliantly deft portrait of a man attempting to retain his humanity, his family and his sense of humour in grim and pitiless times: times of downsizing, outsourcing and privatising. It is about the legacy of Thatcherism and its effects on people and their relationships.' (Synopsis)

Adaptations

form y separately published work icon Three Dollars Robert Connolly , Elliot Perlman , ( dir. Robert Connolly ) Australia : Arenafilm , 2005 Z1354058 2005 single work film/TV

'Based on Elliot Perlman's award-winning novel, THREE DOLLARS tells the story of an honest, compassionate man who finds himself, at the age of 38, with a wife, a child and three dollars.'

Source: Screen Australia. (Sighted: 16/12/2013)

Notes

  • Discussion notes available.
  • Voted by Victorian readers as their 'all time favourite book set in Victoria', as chosen from the Reading Victoria list of 20 novels 'Set Close to Home' in the State Library of Victoria's Summer Reading Programme 2006/7.
  • Dedication: For Janine, Lena and Harry
  • Epigraph: ...a man is not a piece of fruit!...You can't eat the orange and throw the peel away. - Arthur Miller Death of a Salesman.

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • Sydney, New South Wales,: Picador , 1998 .
      image of person or book cover 1331683405771785269.png
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 381p.
      ISBN: 0330360434 (pbk.)
    • London,
      c
      England,
      c
      c
      United Kingdom (UK),
      c
      Western Europe, Europe,
      :
      Faber ,
      1998 .
      image of person or book cover 2357743340591663351.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 358p.
      ISBN: 0571176887
      Series: Number in series: ns@ANL
    • Denver, Colorado,
      c
      United States of America (USA),
      c
      Americas,
      :
      MacMurray & Beck ,
      1999 .
      image of person or book cover 5400939211680861420.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 358p.
      ISBN: 1878448889 (hbk.)
    • Sydney, New South Wales,: Picador , 2005 .
      image of person or book cover 6578973675751116739.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 381p.
      ISBN: 0330421670
    • New York (City), New York (State),
      c
      United States of America (USA),
      c
      Americas,
      :
      Riverhead Books ,
      2007 .
      image of person or book cover 2234312323946868338.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 370p.
      Edition info: 1st Riverhead trade pbk. ed.
      ISBN: 1594482381 (pbk. : alk. paper)
    • North Sydney, North Sydney - Lane Cove area, Sydney Northern Suburbs, Sydney, New South Wales,: Vintage Australia , 2011 .
      image of person or book cover 4409715182784911022.jpg
      This image has been sourced from Booktopia
      Extent: 381p.
      ISBN: 9781742752976
Alternative title: Trois dollars
Language: French
    • Paris,
      c
      France,
      c
      Western Europe, Europe,
      :
      Laffont ,
      2006 .
      image of person or book cover 6754795507043732584.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 402p.
      ISBN: 2221093666

Other Formats

  • Braille.
  • Sound recording.

Works about this Work

Three Dollars, 25 Years and Three Conversations Elliot Perlman , 2023 single work column
— Appears in: The Monthly , March 2023; (p. 50-53)
'IT WAS A LATE Saturday morning in the winter of 1995. I had gone to the supermarket nearest my fl at in inner south-eastern suburban Melbourne to buy a version of the single man’s standard weekly groceries. What the various items I put in the supermarket trolley had in common was that they were all chosen, consciously or otherwise, because they could be consumed without much preparation. Living alone, the last thing I wanted was to spend time in the evening preparing batches of food that I knew in advance – because I had eaten my own cooking before – were going to taste awful.' (Introduction)
Elliot Perlman Interview Samuel Elliott (interviewer), 2019 single work interview
— Appears in: Other Terrain , December no. 8 2019;
Silent Triumph of the Individual : Social Investigation through Empathy in Elliot Perlman's Three Dollars, Seven Types of Ambiguity, and The Street Sweeper Fiona Duthie , 2013 single work criticism
— Appears in: Antipodes , December vol. 27 no. 2 2013; (p. 197-202)

'The novels of Elliot Perlman encompass a wide variety of social observations and criticism in both contemporary and historical settings. Each novel, Three Dollars, Types of Ambiguity, and The Street Sweeper, most definitely constitutes a recognition of suffering and a cry against inhumanity. However, the principal purpose of these novels is not to wallow in awfulness, nor is it solely to educate readers as to the harder realities of life. Here, Duthie examines Perlman's three novels. ' (Publication summary)

Now for the Movie Anneli Knight , 2013 single work column
— Appears in: Australian Author , April vol. 45 no. 1 2013; (p. 26-29)
'When the film producer calls, asking to option your book, many authors feel a shiver of excitement. Five or even ten years later, many of them are still waiting. The process of adaptation can be even more tortuous than writing a book in the first place as prominent authors tell Anneli Knight.'
'Something to Keep You Steady' : Egalitarianism and Distiction from D. H. Lawrence to Christos Tsiolkas Nicholas Birns , 2009 single work criticism
— Appears in: JASAL , no. 9 2009; Interpretations , July vol. 43 no. 2010; (p. 35-42)
'This essay will examine the fiction of D. H. Lawrence, Elliot Perlman, and Christos Tsiolkas with regard to their representation of Australian society, particularly in comparison to the European past and present. Its guiding dynamic will be the opposition between the egalitarian 'mateship' that D. H. lawrence found, and was discomfited by, in 1922 and the economic neoliberalism and concomitant sense of 'distinction' (to use Pierre Bourdieu's term) that Perlman and Tsiolkas see in today's Australia and to the world in which Australia manifests itself.'
Drama of Pitting Man Against Mammon Janet Chimonyo , 1998 single work review
— Appears in: The Sunday Age , 1 March 1998; (p. 12)

— Review of Three Dollars Elliot Perlman , 1998 single work novel
Sober Visions of a Cold, Hard Future Katharine England , 1998 single work review
— Appears in: The Advertiser , 14 March 1998; (p. 23)

— Review of Three Dollars Elliot Perlman , 1998 single work novel ; Snowdome Bernard Cohen , 1998 single work novel
Culture of Greed Michael Sharkey , 1998 single work review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 4-5 April 1998; (p. 27)

— Review of Three Dollars Elliot Perlman , 1998 single work novel
They Don't Write Like This in Sydney James Bradley , 1998 single work review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 4 April 1998; (p. 9)

— Review of Three Dollars Elliot Perlman , 1998 single work novel
Long for the Money Penelope Nelson , 1998 single work review
— Appears in: The Bulletin , 28 April vol. 117 no. 6120 1998; (p. 70-71)

— Review of Three Dollars Elliot Perlman , 1998 single work novel
The Book was Better Susan Wyndham , 2005 single work column
— Appears in: The Age , 9 April 2005; (p. 5)
Life Not as We Know It Stephen Matchett , 2005 single work column
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 14-15 May 2005; (p. 40)
Politics and Monomania Ken Gelder , 2006 single work criticism
— Appears in: Overland , Spring no. 184 2006; (p. 48-56)
'Something to Keep You Steady' : Egalitarianism and Distiction from D. H. Lawrence to Christos Tsiolkas Nicholas Birns , 2009 single work criticism
— Appears in: JASAL , no. 9 2009; Interpretations , July vol. 43 no. 2010; (p. 35-42)
'This essay will examine the fiction of D. H. Lawrence, Elliot Perlman, and Christos Tsiolkas with regard to their representation of Australian society, particularly in comparison to the European past and present. Its guiding dynamic will be the opposition between the egalitarian 'mateship' that D. H. lawrence found, and was discomfited by, in 1922 and the economic neoliberalism and concomitant sense of 'distinction' (to use Pierre Bourdieu's term) that Perlman and Tsiolkas see in today's Australia and to the world in which Australia manifests itself.'
Empty Pockets : Robert Connolly Interviewed on Three Dollars Jonathan Dawson (interviewer), 2005 single work interview
— Appears in: Senses of Cinema , July - September no. 36 2005;
'Australian director Robert Connolly discusses his adaptation of Elliot Perlman's novel about the souring of the Australian dream in an age of economic rationalism.' (Editor's abstract)
Last amended 14 May 2020 11:07:54
X