Райл Макмастер0.0 "In this beautifully written and disturbing Australian coming-of-age novel, McMaster tells the story of Sooky, who struggles to overcome her difficult childhood, the effects of which are powerfully portrayed as she moves from relationship to relationship and from Brisbane to London."—Boston Globe
“I think it’s quite wonderful. Beautifully written. Engrossing and utterly involving and it does something new.”—Maureen Freely
"Let me say that Rhyll McMaster is an extraordinary writer. Her prose is dazzling, poetic and thought-provoking, and this is literary fiction at its best... I have likened Rhyll McMaster to Margaret Atwood. Atwood is brilliant, but in my view McMaster is even better. Feather Man has quite rightly won literary prizes in Australia and my money is on Feather Man making the Booker Prize longlist here." —Vulpes Libris
Winner of the Barbara Jefferis Award 2008
Winner of the Glenda Adams Award for New Writing 2008
Set in Brisbane during the stultifying 1950s and moving to grubby London in the 1970s, Feather Man is about Sooky who, ignored and misunderstood by her parents, is encouraged to make herself scarce and visit Lionel, their elderly next door neighbor.
The early pages of Feather Man are full of images of suburban life in Brisbane in the 1950s. The Thor washing machine thunders away. A kookaburra is perched on the oven door. Sooky’s mother is often chained to the treadmill of her sewing machine. The novel follows Sooky through four relationships with men and her entry into the art world, but the truth is, she is never able to survive unless a relationship is providing the context, however bad it may be.
My hands still gripped his shoulders. I felt the bat wings of hair that ran across his back. He pushed his face close to mine. I looked at his eyes. They were remarkable, glassy, with yellow rays, but now they had a white glare in them, as if I was looking up close into the tunnel of a turned-on torch.
‘Whose girl are you?’ He gave my shoulders a shake.
‘I’m nobody’s girl. I’m me.’
Rhyll McMaster, born in 1947, started writing poetry whilst a child. Washing the Money won the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award and the Grace Leven Prize. Feather Man is her first novel.
Джеральдин Вуллер0.0 She sighs as she starts to pleat her skirt. 'Old age ain't no place for sissies, Willa,' I tell her. 'Bette Davis said that.' Willa looks into infinity, across the length of her days. 'What's happening to me?' The question is a complete throwback to clarity, sanity. 'You've got a serious memory problem,' I say, wanting it to sound like Asian flu - not too grave, certainly not irreversible. Though it is. But Willa has already lost interest. - from The Seamstress *** In this fourth novel in the acclaimed New Writing series, Jo narrates the story of her strong, passionate mother, Willa, whose gradual slide into dementia shifts them into a new and difficult relationship. Infused with abundant warmth and wry humor, The Seamstress is a memorable tale of friendship and love between women.
Мишель де Крецер0.0 Tom Loxley, an Indian-Australian professor, is less concerned with finishing his book on Henry James than with finding his dog, who is lost in the Australian bush. Joining his daily hunt is Nelly Zhang, an artist whose husband disappeared mysteriously years before Tom met her. Although Nelly helps him search for his beloved pet, Tom isn't sure if he should trust this new friend.
Tom has preoccupations other than his book and Nelly and his missing dog, mainly concerning his mother, who is suffering from the various indignities of old age. He is constantly drawn from the cerebral to the primitive--by his mother's infirmities, as well as by Nelly's attractions. THE LOST DOG makes brilliant use of the conventions of suspense and atmosphere while leading us to see anew the ever-present conflicts between our bodies and our minds, the present and the past, the primal and the civilized.
Карен Фоксли0.0 Ten-year-old Jennifer Day lives in a small mining town full of secrets. Trying to make sense of the sudden death of her teenage sister, Beth, she looks to the adult world around her for answers.
As she recounts the final months of Beth’s life, Jennifer sifts through the lies and the truth, but what she finds are mysteries, miracles, and more questions. Was Beth’s death an accident? Why couldn’t Jennifer—or anyone else—save her?
Through Jennifer’s eyes, we see one girl’s failure to cross the threshold into adulthood as her family slowly falls apart.
Элизабет Стед0.0 Missionary Amen Morley arrives on a tropical island to find a community largely untouched by the modern world. A magnet for eccentric characters, the island paradise soon becomes a hotspot of conflicting cultures.
The preachers are competing to save souls, while others have come to make a new beginning. There's Herbert Glass, the English doctor who cures clocks, Missy Wing, the Chinese trader, and Sam Maitland, who the locals dub the 'crocodile man'.
The islanders are bemused by the behaviour of these strange intruders. But instead of being the ones doing the converting, the foreigners end up most transformed by this extraordinary place.
The Gospel of Gods and Crocodiles is overflowing with subversive wit, brilliant observations and larger-than-life characters. This bold novel is suffused with Elizabeth Stead's unique literary style and humour.
