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Small Tales of a Town
The day-to-day hardscrabble existence of a small town on the edge of the Australian outback is chronicled here in a series of 26 vignettes. The author, an award-winning Australian journalist, gives the book its continuity through the narrator, himself a journalist and a big-city newcomer to this small town. Gradually a portrait of the town and its people emerges. There is the colorful newspaper editor and his chief photographer, whose engrossing second job is placing bets on the horses, and the old man and his brain-damaged wife who live in the country and save the narrator from a flood. His return help in saving their sheep finally earns him slow acceptance by the townspeople. Tragic chapters alternate with humorous in a well-balanced book recommended for large fiction collections.
184 pages, Hardcover
First published December 1, 1988
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
March 1, 2016
http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/6...
Gentle & not-so-gentle satire of life in small town Australia, and all the trials & tribulations, sense & sensibilities, thereof. Very easy reading, & some of it brings back vague memories from childhood. What a eye-opener for the city-boy journalist. One had to be very careful what to put in a local paper for fear of offending members of the local RSL, Lions, Rotary, CWA, etc.
Can be read as a novel or as an interlocking collection of short stories. Perfect for bedtime reading.
cover:
Small Tales of a Town is an intimate portrait of small-town life on the edge of the Australian outback, written with all the charm, poignancy and humour of an Australian Lake Wobegon Days.
To the journalist who arrives there fresh from Melbourne the town looks quiet enough - just a straggle of sun-baked buildings set in the middle of thousands of miles of red, shifting sand. But behind the sleepy facade lurk tragedy, farce, fierce feuds and enough extraordinary characters and incidents to keep The Weekly Advertiser packed with copy. There is the rumour of the boy kept chained up by his parents like an animal, the cricket match where everyone gets food poisoning courtesy of the doctor's wife's chicken sandwiches, the 'bloody Commo' newcomer who wants to turn the Kookaburra cafe into a health-food store and rename it Engels, not to mention the episode of the giant carrot.
Through the amuset yet sympathetic eyes of the narrator-journalist we observe the life of the town from the torrential rains of winter through heat and drought to the appalling summer bushfires that will take their tragic toll on the town we have grown to love.
Here is a memorable and utterly delightful first novel from a talented young Australian writer with a sharp eye and a sparky sense of humour.
Gentle & not-so-gentle satire of life in small town Australia, and all the trials & tribulations, sense & sensibilities, thereof. Very easy reading, & some of it brings back vague memories from childhood. What a eye-opener for the city-boy journalist. One had to be very careful what to put in a local paper for fear of offending members of the local RSL, Lions, Rotary, CWA, etc.
Can be read as a novel or as an interlocking collection of short stories. Perfect for bedtime reading.
cover:
Small Tales of a Town is an intimate portrait of small-town life on the edge of the Australian outback, written with all the charm, poignancy and humour of an Australian Lake Wobegon Days.
To the journalist who arrives there fresh from Melbourne the town looks quiet enough - just a straggle of sun-baked buildings set in the middle of thousands of miles of red, shifting sand. But behind the sleepy facade lurk tragedy, farce, fierce feuds and enough extraordinary characters and incidents to keep The Weekly Advertiser packed with copy. There is the rumour of the boy kept chained up by his parents like an animal, the cricket match where everyone gets food poisoning courtesy of the doctor's wife's chicken sandwiches, the 'bloody Commo' newcomer who wants to turn the Kookaburra cafe into a health-food store and rename it Engels, not to mention the episode of the giant carrot.
Through the amuset yet sympathetic eyes of the narrator-journalist we observe the life of the town from the torrential rains of winter through heat and drought to the appalling summer bushfires that will take their tragic toll on the town we have grown to love.
Here is a memorable and utterly delightful first novel from a talented young Australian writer with a sharp eye and a sparky sense of humour.
Displaying 1 of 1 review