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Taking Shelter
It’s 1980s Sydney and for this group of family and friends, love and relationships are complicated. Beth wants Miles, Marcus wants Beth, Marcus’ mother isn’t wanted by anyone anymore, Kyrie wants what’s on offer, and Juliet is not quite sure what she wants. An insightful, witty novel from the multi-award-winning author of Tirra Lirra by the River , Jessica Anderson. ‘A provocative blend of Jane Austen domesticity, Iris Murdoch androgyny and Australian sensuality.’ — Washington Post Book World First published in 1989, Taking Shelter was shortlisted for the NBC Banjo Award for Fiction in 1990 and the Miles Franklin Literary Award the following year. Jessica Anderson’s novels include The Commandant (1975), Tirra Lirra By the River (1978) which won the Miles Franklin Literary Award in 1978, and The Impersonators (1980), which won the same award just two years later, along with the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction (1981). Her multi-award-winning collection of short stories, Stories from the Warm Zone and Sydney Stories (1987), is also part of the Untapped Collection.
- GenresAustralia
240 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1989
About the author
Jessica Anderson
112 books22 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.
This is Jessica^Anderson, where ^=space.
About the Author:
Jessica Margaret Anderson (25 September 1916 – 9 July 2010) was an Australian novelist and short story writer.
(from Wikipedia)
This is Jessica^Anderson, where ^=space.
About the Author:
Jessica Margaret Anderson (25 September 1916 – 9 July 2010) was an Australian novelist and short story writer.
(from Wikipedia)
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
January 16, 2025
An engaging character based novel about 20 year old Beth and a number of interesting individuals she mixes with in Sydney, Australia, in the 1980s.
Beth has left her large rural family to work in the city. She falls in love with Miles, a conservative young lawyer. However she is put off by Miles when he tells her he likes men but not in a physically sexual way, yet. At a party Beth meets Marcus and her life changes. Surrounding Beth are Kylie, a brash, sexually adventurous cousin and the old, well off Juliet, who lives alone, but is involved in other people’s lives, (in a kind hearted and generous way).
A delightful, sometimes witty and compassionate novel.
This book was shortlisted for the 1991 Miles Franklin Award.
Beth has left her large rural family to work in the city. She falls in love with Miles, a conservative young lawyer. However she is put off by Miles when he tells her he likes men but not in a physically sexual way, yet. At a party Beth meets Marcus and her life changes. Surrounding Beth are Kylie, a brash, sexually adventurous cousin and the old, well off Juliet, who lives alone, but is involved in other people’s lives, (in a kind hearted and generous way).
A delightful, sometimes witty and compassionate novel.
This book was shortlisted for the 1991 Miles Franklin Award.
July 22, 2016
Jessica Anderson was, as Sue at Whispering Gums has noted, a ‘late bloomer’, and Taking Shelter published in 1989 when she was 73 is Anderson’s sixth novel of only seven. Although the blurb on my Penguin edition calls it ‘a provocative blend of Jane Austen domesticity, Iris Murdoch androgyny, and Australian sensuality’, I found that it had a rather whimsical tone, generated mainly by the controlling figure of Juliet, ‘spare old godmother’ to Miles and ‘fairy godmother’ to those she loves.
Juliet is an interesting choice of name for a celibate, childless old woman orchestrating the lives of the tribe that surrounds her. Irrevocably associated with Shakespeare’s play, ’Juliet’ has connotations of youthful, romantic, doomed love. It seems a name better suited to Beth, the most interesting character in the book, the one engaged to Miles who turns out to be gay, and the one who has a grand, passionate love for Marcus – who might turn out to be feckless and irresponsible. The one who might find that the choice she has reluctantly made is the wrong one…
Anderson made some other puzzling authorial choices. I’m all in favour of novelists trying something different, and with Taking Shelter, Jessica Anderson has structured the narration so that part of the story is told through Juliet’s dream diary, and the rest (most of it) in straightforward third-person narrative with a great deal of dialogue. I enjoyed the sharp wit of the narrative, but found myself irritated by the dream diary. It’s awkward, it’s inelegant. I’m still trying to fathom why the author chose to do it this way. Was she satirising Women’s Weekly/New Idea dreamology?
To read the rest of my review please visit http://anzlitlovers.com/2014/03/15/ta...
Juliet is an interesting choice of name for a celibate, childless old woman orchestrating the lives of the tribe that surrounds her. Irrevocably associated with Shakespeare’s play, ’Juliet’ has connotations of youthful, romantic, doomed love. It seems a name better suited to Beth, the most interesting character in the book, the one engaged to Miles who turns out to be gay, and the one who has a grand, passionate love for Marcus – who might turn out to be feckless and irresponsible. The one who might find that the choice she has reluctantly made is the wrong one…
Anderson made some other puzzling authorial choices. I’m all in favour of novelists trying something different, and with Taking Shelter, Jessica Anderson has structured the narration so that part of the story is told through Juliet’s dream diary, and the rest (most of it) in straightforward third-person narrative with a great deal of dialogue. I enjoyed the sharp wit of the narrative, but found myself irritated by the dream diary. It’s awkward, it’s inelegant. I’m still trying to fathom why the author chose to do it this way. Was she satirising Women’s Weekly/New Idea dreamology?
To read the rest of my review please visit http://anzlitlovers.com/2014/03/15/ta...
January 5, 2023
I was led to this after reading Tirra Lirra by the River---but this is not as good. The writing and the story both seemed old fashioned and offered little to this reader. DNF
5/10
5/10
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews