Just Relations

by Rodney Hall

"The residents of Whitney's Fall are aged between 80 and 114. In this remote Australian mining town they are a bastion against the empty promise of progress. In fact they are the guardians of the land's unfulfilled dream, a mountain of gold awaiting the gentle kiss of gelignite..."

Genres: Fiction, Australia, Novels, 20th Century

First published January 1, 1982

About the author

Born in Solihull, Warwickshire, England, Hall came to Australia as a child after World War II and studied at the University of Queensland. Between 1967 and 1978 he was the Poetry Editor of The Australian. After a period living in Shanghai in the 1980s, Hall returned to Australia, and took up residence in Victoria.

Hall has twice won the Australian Literature Society Gold Medal, and has received seven nominations for the prestigious Miles Franklin Award, for which he has twice won ("Just Relations" in 1982 and "The Grisly Wife" in 1994).

Reviews

[Big Pete · Rating 5 out of 5]

A rich, symphonic novel that is beautifully written and deeply Australian. It's a shame it isn't better known - Rodney Hall's imagination is vast, and his prose is gorgeous; simultaneously crystal-clear and complex, as lustrous as a nugget of gold washed down from a mountain stream.
It's a terrific example of cutting-edge 20th century world literature. It's funny, tragic, grotesque, wise, tender, enjoyable and ultimately moving.
Just Relations is, as Salman Rushdie once said, "so good that you wish you had written it yourself"
Verdict: A Great Australian Novel that should be better remembered in its own country.

[Mark · Rating 2 out of 5]

Perhaps the worst ever Miles Franklin winning book. I’ve read the reviews by literary experts and found it more grinding rather than ground breaking. I found it hard to follow and tedious from beginning to the very end. Shallow characters and random pages of words without any sentence structure - no idea why this sort of writing was considered to be ground breaking.

[Jarmby · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn’t finish it
I don’t have the literary skill to comprehend what some authors are saying no matter how skilled or talented they may be
I wanted to enjoy it but life is too short to labour for scant reward