Ride on Stranger

by Kylie Tennant

'Civilization is made and getting madder every day.' So says Shannon Hicks in Kylie Tennant's marvellous, harsh and satiric novel. Arriving in Sydney just before World War II, Shannon, a dreamer and idealist, takes on the world of politics, business, religion... and men. The consequences are challenging and unpredictable.

Genres: Australia, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Novels, 20th Century

400 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1943

About the author

Kylie Tennant was born in Manly, NSW, in 1912. In 1932, she married Lewis Charles Rodd. Her first novel, Tiburon, won the S. H. Prior Memorial Prize in 1935. and further novels saw her develop her social-realist style. However, her work is much more complex than suggested by the term social realism, although she conducted first-hand research to give her novels authenticity, once even spending a week in gaol. Her best known novel is The Battlers (1941) which won the S.H. Prior Memorial Prize in 1940 and the Australian Literature Society Gold Medal in 1941. Other of her works embrace travel, biography, work for children and dramatic works. In 1980 Kylie Tennant was made AO. She died in 1988.
Awards

1935: S. H. Prior Memorial Prize awarded by The Bulletin magazine, for Tiburon[5]
1940: S. H. Prior Memorial Prize (run by the Bulletin), for The Battlers, shared with Eve Langley, The Pea-Pickers, and Malcolm Henry Ellis's "John Murtagh Macrossan lectures".
1942: Australian Literature Society Gold Medal for The Battlers
1960: Children’s Book Council Book Award for All the Proud Tribesmen
1980: Officer of the Order of Australia for services to literature[6]

Reviews

[Laurel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like the Shiralee, I think this an Australian masterpiece.

[Hugh Watson · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a brilliant novel. The writing is delicious and the characters so well drawn. The depiction of Sydney in the 1930s was beautiful.
Highly recommended.

[Fiona · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 really
Intense and quirky and full on. A cast of side characters with great names and full personalities but Shannon ducks and weaves through them all, eventually. She is a little lost amongst them and all their passion for causes and themselves for most of the book. Interesting meandering plot. I wonder if the characters would have been recognised as real people at the time of publication?
Don’t read the intro - it’s depressing and not as vivid as the book itself.

[Greg Robinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

a worthy addition to our knowledge of the human condition; fictional tale but close to reality; well-written Australian narrative of discovery

[Lisa · Rating 2 out of 5]

According to the PEN Macquarie Anthology of Australian Literature edited by Nicholas José) (2009), which includes an excerpt from Ride on Stranger, Kylie Tennant was sued for libel over one of the scenes in it. In satirising the social life of the Communist Party of Australia, she apparently made one of her characters identifiable, so Angus & Robertson withdrew the edition and paid up £250. But unless that was included in Kerryn Goldsworthy’s Introduction to the 1990 A&R edition, I didn’t know that when I scrawled my thoughts in my journal. In 2006, I had not read anything else by Tennant, and as you can see, I was a bit dismissive.

6th October, 2006
Beware: spoilers

Written in 1943 and made into a tele-series in the 1980s, this is probably the most well-known of Tennant’s novels. In her day, I think she was as popular as George Johnson.

It’s the story of Shannon Hicks, whose father works in the butter factory and whose mother wanted something better for her daughter. It’s ironic then that Shannon ends up back in small town Kerluit (?sp) milking cows. Then again, maybe not, because she left school prematurely, and never stuck at anything.

She is destined to be alone and independent, and yet she is the one on whom others depend—because she has an innate ability to learn new skills and to organise. She goes to live at her Aunt Edith’s Sydney boarding house as an unpaid skivvy, but leaves when Edith marries a snake-oil salesman called Vincent Sladder (who eventually ends up in gaol.) Shannon goes on to work in a variety of jobs unworthy of her and nearly marries Quilter, for whom she organises a political campaign. She mixes with anarchists and lefties and has a harshly cynical view of the world. I didn’t like her much.

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2021/01/24/r...

[Jo · Rating 5 out of 5]

A really good read. i will endeavor to find more books by Kyle Tennant