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The Drover’s Wives
Henry Lawson’s short story ‘The Drover’s Wife’ is an Australian classic that has sparked interpretations on the page, on canvas and on the stage. But it has never been so thoroughly, or hilariously, reimagined as by Ryan O’Neill, remixing and revising Lawson’s masterpiece in 99 different ways.
You’ll be amused, delighted and surprised by a Year 8 essay, a sporting commentary, a pop song, a Hollywood movie adaptation and many more.
You’ll be amused, delighted and surprised by a Year 8 essay, a sporting commentary, a pop song, a Hollywood movie adaptation and many more.
255 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2018
About the author
Ryan O'Neill
23 books52 followersRyan O'Neill was born in Scotland, and lived and worked in Lithuania, Rwanda and China before settling in NSW, Australia.
His short stories have appeared in numerous anthologies and journals including Meanjin, Westerly, New Australian Stories, Sleepers Almanac and Best Australian Stories. He is also a fiction editor for Etchings.
Ryan's short story collection, The Weight of a Human Heart, is published in Australia by Black Inc, in the UK by Old Street Publishing, in Israel by Kinneret Zmora-Bitan Dvir and in the US by St Martin's Press.
His short stories have appeared in numerous anthologies and journals including Meanjin, Westerly, New Australian Stories, Sleepers Almanac and Best Australian Stories. He is also a fiction editor for Etchings.
Ryan's short story collection, The Weight of a Human Heart, is published in Australia by Black Inc, in the UK by Old Street Publishing, in Israel by Kinneret Zmora-Bitan Dvir and in the US by St Martin's Press.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 34 reviews
November 5, 2019
Copied review: See Paul’s review here (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...)
Marked review: 8/10
Emoticon Review: :o)
Pretentious review: Simultaneously Antipodean and Queneauesque.
Politically correct review: The book reminds us that before the corruption of colonists, indigenous stories only existed in verbal form, and only gained their form by repetition, retelling and reshaping not in some privileged, canonised formulation written in the imperial language.
RoC Review: This book was published by the leading UK small press Eye & Lightning
Spoiler review: The snake dies.
No writing review: ••••
Lipogram appriasal: A strong book with many variations around a basic plot
NetGalley review: My thanks to the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Goodreads Giveaway review: I won this book in a Goodreads giveaway. I thought it would be a good book but it is very repetitive and seems to tell the same story lots of times.
Spoonerism review. The latest not hovel from Australia’s west brighter.
Blogger review: Please click here to read my review on my own website – which I don’t want to post here as I need to prove how much traffic I get so I can continue to receive free books to review.
Booktuber review. As above + as a bonus I have a very creative video where I hold up copies of the book while I discuss it.
2019 Booker Judges Review. Both this and My Briiliant Careers are equally fantastic. I tried to choose between them and I couldn’t. I tried voting - it didn’t work
Crossword review. Initially, how good is it? Versatile edition reviewed yourself.
Marked review: 8/10
Emoticon Review: :o)
Pretentious review: Simultaneously Antipodean and Queneauesque.
Politically correct review: The book reminds us that before the corruption of colonists, indigenous stories only existed in verbal form, and only gained their form by repetition, retelling and reshaping not in some privileged, canonised formulation written in the imperial language.
RoC Review: This book was published by the leading UK small press Eye & Lightning
Spoiler review: The snake dies.
No writing review: ••••
Lipogram appriasal: A strong book with many variations around a basic plot
NetGalley review: My thanks to the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Goodreads Giveaway review: I won this book in a Goodreads giveaway. I thought it would be a good book but it is very repetitive and seems to tell the same story lots of times.
Spoonerism review. The latest not hovel from Australia’s west brighter.
Blogger review: Please click here to read my review on my own website – which I don’t want to post here as I need to prove how much traffic I get so I can continue to receive free books to review.
Booktuber review. As above + as a bonus I have a very creative video where I hold up copies of the book while I discuss it.
2019 Booker Judges Review. Both this and My Briiliant Careers are equally fantastic. I tried to choose between them and I couldn’t. I tried voting - it didn’t work
Crossword review. Initially, how good is it? Versatile edition reviewed yourself.
May 7, 2019
The Drovers Wives is another wonderful book by Ryan O'Neill and, in the UK, Eye & Lightning Books, to follow Their Brilliant Careers.
Like that book, this takes on an icon of Australian literature, and more than delivers both on literary humour but also criticism.
In a similar vein (and with an acknowledged debt) to Raymond Queneau's famous Exercices de style, O'Neill provides us 99 (*) variations of one story in a variety of styles.
While Queneau riffed on a simple story written for his novel, O'Neill uses as a basis the classical Australian late 19th century short story The Drover's Wife by Henry Lawson (included in the book but also available here), a story which ends:
‘Mother, I won’t never go drovin’; blarst me if I do!’ And she hugs him to her worn-out breast and kisses him; and they sit thus together while the sickly daylight breaks over the bush.
* actually the UK version has 101 variations, due. I'm told, to the restoration of two rather risque tales - one in the style of A Letter to Penthouse and the other A Sex Manual - which were apparently not included in the Australian original so that the book could be used in schools, given the ubiquity of Lawson's tale in literary syllabuses there, although in practice there is some adult humour elsewhere.
O'Neill's own explanation for his choice of project:
There are so many highlights it is pointless to try and list them all as I'd end up reproducing the table of contents, but I did particularly enjoy the tale rewritten as a 1980s computer adventure game, with all the frustration of finding the accepted exact formulation of a command, as well as that annoying character who "sits down and starts singing about gold."
Others include Cento, assembled Felix Culpa style entirely from lines of well-known Australian poems, and the very well-observed A Question Asked by an Audience Member at a Writers' Festival, which, inevitably, after a couple of pages of rambling and self-promotion ends 'I guess this is more of a comment.'
The fun and rewrites extend to the Index (albeit not quite as vital to the book as was the one in Their Brilliant Careers), the Bibliography, even the Note on The Type, and ends with a Colour Swatch on the back-cover.
Any fuzziness in this swatch is down to my poor photography skills, but there were a couple of places the printing in this edition was a little blurry, although given the rest of the book is reproduced to a high standard, this may have been deliberate:
- the Scratch and Sniff version - perhaps the smudging is due to excessive scratching (and thereby explains the resulting lack of any scent to actually sniff!);
- the Cryptic Crossword, designed with help from a professional and with very useful solutions explaining the language of crosswords for the uninitiated. The numbers on the crossword grid can't be read, although they can be inferred using the usual convention, which does lead to deferred discovery of a clever hidden joke (I was a little surprised at the missed opportunity to make a similar joke in the Word Search)
Not every tale is perfect - the Cosmo Quiz was fun but the scores (are you mostly A's etc) seemed misallocated on some questions, and O'Neill could usefully take some lessons from the Oulipan Queneau on writing Maths Problems - but there is a very high success rate. While some pay prefer to dip-in and sample, the book is actually pure pleasure to read cover to cover, and indeed may be best appreciated that way given some of the recurrent themes both serious (Lawson's troubling treatment of the aboriginal characters) and fun (the 'sickly-coloured sunset' comes up a lot).
Not quite as original as O'Neill's Their Brilliant Careers, which was a bizarre omission from last year's Republic of Consciousness Prize, but highly recommended. 4.5 stars.
Like that book, this takes on an icon of Australian literature, and more than delivers both on literary humour but also criticism.
In a similar vein (and with an acknowledged debt) to Raymond Queneau's famous Exercices de style, O'Neill provides us 99 (*) variations of one story in a variety of styles.
While Queneau riffed on a simple story written for his novel, O'Neill uses as a basis the classical Australian late 19th century short story The Drover's Wife by Henry Lawson (included in the book but also available here), a story which ends:
‘Mother, I won’t never go drovin’; blarst me if I do!’ And she hugs him to her worn-out breast and kisses him; and they sit thus together while the sickly daylight breaks over the bush.
* actually the UK version has 101 variations, due. I'm told, to the restoration of two rather risque tales - one in the style of A Letter to Penthouse and the other A Sex Manual - which were apparently not included in the Australian original so that the book could be used in schools, given the ubiquity of Lawson's tale in literary syllabuses there, although in practice there is some adult humour elsewhere.
O'Neill's own explanation for his choice of project:
With Lawson inaugurating a tradition of writing which Patrick White criticised as being 'the dreary, dun-coloured offspring of journalistic realism,' it is easy to forget that, for his time, Lawson was an experimental writer. Before Lawson, most Australian short-story writers remained wedded to the conventions of the English novel; their characters were robbers, pirates, noble milkmaids – not real people – and their style was florid, stuffy and over-elaborate. Lawson swept all this away to create something new and distinctively Australian; but he was so successful that within a few years Lawson's conventions had replaced the English ones. The experimental became the traditional.See also this longer SMH interview which explains how this book follows on from Frank Moorhouse's The Drover's Wife: A Collection.
With 'The Drover's Wives' I wanted to experiment with this iconic Australian short story by retelling it in as many different ways as I could find. I hope that each version of 'The Drover's Wives' finds something new in Lawson's short story, and while celebrating Lawson's great contribution to Australian literature, it will also serve as a reminder that literary realism is not the only way to tell Australian stories.
There are so many highlights it is pointless to try and list them all as I'd end up reproducing the table of contents, but I did particularly enjoy the tale rewritten as a 1980s computer adventure game, with all the frustration of finding the accepted exact formulation of a command, as well as that annoying character who "sits down and starts singing about gold."
Others include Cento, assembled Felix Culpa style entirely from lines of well-known Australian poems, and the very well-observed A Question Asked by an Audience Member at a Writers' Festival, which, inevitably, after a couple of pages of rambling and self-promotion ends 'I guess this is more of a comment.'
The fun and rewrites extend to the Index (albeit not quite as vital to the book as was the one in Their Brilliant Careers), the Bibliography, even the Note on The Type, and ends with a Colour Swatch on the back-cover.
Any fuzziness in this swatch is down to my poor photography skills, but there were a couple of places the printing in this edition was a little blurry, although given the rest of the book is reproduced to a high standard, this may have been deliberate:
- the Scratch and Sniff version - perhaps the smudging is due to excessive scratching (and thereby explains the resulting lack of any scent to actually sniff!);
- the Cryptic Crossword, designed with help from a professional and with very useful solutions explaining the language of crosswords for the uninitiated. The numbers on the crossword grid can't be read, although they can be inferred using the usual convention, which does lead to deferred discovery of a clever hidden joke (I was a little surprised at the missed opportunity to make a similar joke in the Word Search)
Not every tale is perfect - the Cosmo Quiz was fun but the scores (are you mostly A's etc) seemed misallocated on some questions, and O'Neill could usefully take some lessons from the Oulipan Queneau on writing Maths Problems - but there is a very high success rate. While some pay prefer to dip-in and sample, the book is actually pure pleasure to read cover to cover, and indeed may be best appreciated that way given some of the recurrent themes both serious (Lawson's troubling treatment of the aboriginal characters) and fun (the 'sickly-coloured sunset' comes up a lot).
Not quite as original as O'Neill's Their Brilliant Careers, which was a bizarre omission from last year's Republic of Consciousness Prize, but highly recommended. 4.5 stars.
February 26, 2021
You have to admire the work, creativity and devotion O'Neill has put into this book.
I don't want to sound ungrateful but it's rather a book to show to people or even put next to the toilet, then something you should read from start to finish.
The effort and inspiration 4,5/5
The reading experience 3,5/5
I don't want to sound ungrateful but it's rather a book to show to people or even put next to the toilet, then something you should read from start to finish.
The effort and inspiration 4,5/5
The reading experience 3,5/5
December 21, 2019
What a delectable (and delectably weird) book this is. I fell in love with O'Neill's Their Brilliant Careers: The Fantastic Lives of Sixteen Extraordinary Australian Writers, in which he invents 16 Australian writers to give us their biographies, in turns sad, witty, trenchant, a Chinese puzzle box of a book. The Drover's Wives is much in the same vein but perhaps a bit more accessible to people without as much knowledge of the country's literary history.
The book opens with the original Henry Lawson short story, a key text in the invention of Australian literature, the relation of white people to the land in the 19th century, but also a work that raises questions about the nature of the Australian experiment. O'Neill then comes up with 99 variations on a theme, ranging from a TV sitcom script to an emoji narrative, a TV guide listing, a Joycean reinterpretation, a crossword, an absurdist play, and so on. This book would be good even for highschool students of the text. Although there are further puzzles to be found within (as in his other book, O'Neill has some wicked fun with in-jokes in the index) many of the interpretations are straightforwardly funny or clever.
An interesting satirist whose career I will follow closely.
The book opens with the original Henry Lawson short story, a key text in the invention of Australian literature, the relation of white people to the land in the 19th century, but also a work that raises questions about the nature of the Australian experiment. O'Neill then comes up with 99 variations on a theme, ranging from a TV sitcom script to an emoji narrative, a TV guide listing, a Joycean reinterpretation, a crossword, an absurdist play, and so on. This book would be good even for highschool students of the text. Although there are further puzzles to be found within (as in his other book, O'Neill has some wicked fun with in-jokes in the index) many of the interpretations are straightforwardly funny or clever.
An interesting satirist whose career I will follow closely.
September 29, 2018
I started writing down my favourites - I stopped after about 20 😆 This is such a clever idea - and so much fun
August 28, 2019
I really loved O'Neill's previous book and this is pretty great too. I expect if I'd read the short story that inspired it before - I guess Australians read it at school - it would have got five stars. (The book does include the original so don't panic.) It's clever and funny. I look forward to reading the next one!
November 20, 2018
Absolutely hilarious and so very clever. Hope Ryan O'Neill is busy on his next one, can't wait.....
August 27, 2018
I loved Their Brilliant Careers and I loved this Oulipan exercise with an Australian classic. I think I'm Ryan O'Neill's ideal reader. This is extremely entertaining.
August 27, 2019
*I received a free copy of this book, with thanks to the author and Eye and Lightning Books. The decision to review and my opinions are my own.*
This is an incredibly clever book – telling the same story in 101 very different ways, from poetry to prose, puzzles to memes.
The book starts by presenting the Henry Lawson short story ‘The Drover’s Wife’. Ryan O’Neill then explores the story, turning it inside out and upside down, twisting it and shaping it into entirely new perspectives.
On the surface this is an incredibly witty and entertaining satire – exceedingly well executed and very creative. Dig a little deeper and you realise that, in simply reading this book casually, you gain such an intimate insight into the original story that you could write your own essay on it quite easily. I imagine Ryan O’Neill can recite the thing verbatim in his sleep!
Some of my personal favourite re-tellings were ‘A Self-Published Novel Cover’, ‘A 1980’s Computer Game’, ‘Backwards’, ‘A Reality TV Show’ and ‘An RSPCA Report’, so as you can see, there really is something here for everyone. Definitely worth a look if you want a read that is both entertaining and (kind of) educational!
A snake approaches.
The women and children run
And hide in the house.
Through the long night she watches –
Shedding memories like scales
And the snake burns with the dawn.
– Ryan O’Neill, ‘Tanka’ in The Drover’s Wives
Review by Steph Warren of Bookshine and Readbows blog
https://bookshineandreadbows.wordpres...
This is an incredibly clever book – telling the same story in 101 very different ways, from poetry to prose, puzzles to memes.
The book starts by presenting the Henry Lawson short story ‘The Drover’s Wife’. Ryan O’Neill then explores the story, turning it inside out and upside down, twisting it and shaping it into entirely new perspectives.
On the surface this is an incredibly witty and entertaining satire – exceedingly well executed and very creative. Dig a little deeper and you realise that, in simply reading this book casually, you gain such an intimate insight into the original story that you could write your own essay on it quite easily. I imagine Ryan O’Neill can recite the thing verbatim in his sleep!
Some of my personal favourite re-tellings were ‘A Self-Published Novel Cover’, ‘A 1980’s Computer Game’, ‘Backwards’, ‘A Reality TV Show’ and ‘An RSPCA Report’, so as you can see, there really is something here for everyone. Definitely worth a look if you want a read that is both entertaining and (kind of) educational!
A snake approaches.
The women and children run
And hide in the house.
Through the long night she watches –
Shedding memories like scales
And the snake burns with the dawn.
– Ryan O’Neill, ‘Tanka’ in The Drover’s Wives
Review by Steph Warren of Bookshine and Readbows blog
https://bookshineandreadbows.wordpres...
July 19, 2019
First there was the film The Aristocrats, which showed countless ways of presenting just one NSFW anecdotal story. Then came Matt Madden's 99 Ways to Tell a Story, which showed one simple incident in everyday life in 99 different visual ways, and was a masterful portrayal of graphic novel form as a result. Now this, which knocks everything else into a cocked hat, and is one of the cleverest as well as one of the funniest books of all time.
Those outside Australia might not know of the story of a woman alone but for her children and dog, and how she muses on life while waiting to club to death a possibly dangerous snake. This book takes that whole thing and transfers it copiously, whether it be to Glaswegian argot, to crossword clues, to versions that might be writ by Bob Dylan, Shakespeare or Lovecraft – or Reverend Spooner, the latter two to especially hilarious effect. It has an incredible surprise every time, and most of them are delightfully witty in the sense of cleverly witty, but many are also witty in the sense of bloody funny. You get jokes based on Old Macdonald Had a Farm, and you get jokes based on Georges Perec, and apart from a few Australia-only ones, they all land hard.
Supremely clever, this is not only one of the few review copies I'm keeping out of the year's haul, it's also going to be one I never lend out, lest I get it back in inferior condition. It really is that good.
Those outside Australia might not know of the story of a woman alone but for her children and dog, and how she muses on life while waiting to club to death a possibly dangerous snake. This book takes that whole thing and transfers it copiously, whether it be to Glaswegian argot, to crossword clues, to versions that might be writ by Bob Dylan, Shakespeare or Lovecraft – or Reverend Spooner, the latter two to especially hilarious effect. It has an incredible surprise every time, and most of them are delightfully witty in the sense of cleverly witty, but many are also witty in the sense of bloody funny. You get jokes based on Old Macdonald Had a Farm, and you get jokes based on Georges Perec, and apart from a few Australia-only ones, they all land hard.
Supremely clever, this is not only one of the few review copies I'm keeping out of the year's haul, it's also going to be one I never lend out, lest I get it back in inferior condition. It really is that good.
November 16, 2019
99 Interpretations of the Drover's Wives was a LOT of fun. Starting with a reprint of the original Henry Lawson story to refresh our memories, O'Neill then went on to retell the story in various literary styles.
I'd love to share all 99 with you, but that would just get tedious. Which is how I also felt if I tried to read more than 4 or 5 in one sitting.
The Drover's Wives was best read in small doses so that one could enjoy each version for what it was.
My personal favourites were the Hemingwayesque, the Year 8 English Essay (which had me laughing out loud and reading parts out to a bemused Mr Books), Editorial Comments, A Gossip Column, A 1980's Computer Game, Tweets, A Question Asked by an Audience Member at a Writer's Festival and Biographical. I also enjoyed the Cryptic Crossword and Wordsearch.
Some of the interpretations left me scrambling around on google trying to understand the reference. For instance, I have never read any Cormac McCarthy, so the McCarthyesque version went over my head until I found a vocab list of McCarthy's books that explained everything!
Full review here - http://bronasbooks.blogspot.com/2019/...
I'd love to share all 99 with you, but that would just get tedious. Which is how I also felt if I tried to read more than 4 or 5 in one sitting.
The Drover's Wives was best read in small doses so that one could enjoy each version for what it was.
My personal favourites were the Hemingwayesque, the Year 8 English Essay (which had me laughing out loud and reading parts out to a bemused Mr Books), Editorial Comments, A Gossip Column, A 1980's Computer Game, Tweets, A Question Asked by an Audience Member at a Writer's Festival and Biographical. I also enjoyed the Cryptic Crossword and Wordsearch.
Some of the interpretations left me scrambling around on google trying to understand the reference. For instance, I have never read any Cormac McCarthy, so the McCarthyesque version went over my head until I found a vocab list of McCarthy's books that explained everything!
Full review here - http://bronasbooks.blogspot.com/2019/...
November 9, 2019
Having loved O'Neill's Their Brilliant Careers, I was equally impressed with this collection of retellings of a classic Australian short story by 19th century author Henry Lawson. It really is brilliant- and any book that has both a cryptic crossword and a song sung to the tune of Bob Dylan's Like A Rolling Stone is a winner as far as I'm concerned. I also enjoyed the authors' recommendations, and the 1980s computer game (I remember them well). I know very little about Australian literature, and had not heard of Henry Lawson before but now I feel inclined to read more.
July 19, 2020
Maybe it's in the retelling, but I felt I that I really got to know the drover's wife through this fragmented dissection of her life and lives. Somehow though I didn't get to know the children any better, and whose fault could that be.
For those coming in cold, this is 99 reinterpretations of a certain hoary old tale from Australia's literary past, or something. They range from enlightening to frankly baffling. Of course, only Sydney Steele gets to the real mystery.
For those coming in cold, this is 99 reinterpretations of a certain hoary old tale from Australia's literary past, or something. They range from enlightening to frankly baffling. Of course, only Sydney Steele gets to the real mystery.
January 22, 2022
This has a definite energy- the sheer eccentricity of a project to re-tell a famous Australian short story in 100 different genres (from crossword puzzle to James Joyce stream of consciousness). I had enjoyed his previous book, Their Brilliant Careers, a collection of fictional biographies of the Australian writing scene, but the Drover's Wives conceit is insufficient to carry a whole volume. Often the concept is easier to admire rather than being funny.
April 22, 2024
Loved it!!!! The book came highly recommended from a writing seminar for English teachers. I initially purchased it for Preliminary students but I was so taken with the book when I finally sat down to look through it. It contains so much context and culture and is very well done. The satire was never over judgemental, I felt it was filled with fabulous observations of a range of cultural nuances. I’m rewriting my whole program to feature this book :)
July 4, 2019
This is a clever book. It’s probably not something that you’d just read cover to cover. It’s the sort of book that you can keep “on the go”. Henry Lawson’s story “The Drover’s Wife” is retold in 99 different styles including a cryptic crossword, a sporting commentary, in emojis, as a Choose Your Own Adventure and as paint swatches.
April 26, 2020
99 reinterpretations of the classic story of The Drover's Wife by Henry Lawson. So many different styles of interpretations it was amazing. I remember this story clearly from my school days, mainly because I got told off for reading it too fast... my response - tell everyone to listen quicker.... (within the first 2 weeks of school here in Australia)
December 17, 2022
I received this as a secret Santa gift. It is funny, fun, and a quick read. As a teacher, I very much appreciated the year 8 student analysis essay. I have seen such essays oh so many times.
To echo a previous reviewer, it very much feels like a toilet book - you read a couple of pages in between strains and that's enough.
To echo a previous reviewer, it very much feels like a toilet book - you read a couple of pages in between strains and that's enough.
February 17, 2022
This is simply unique. Reimagining the same classic story of 'The Drover's Wife' in 99 different ways, this book is full of technique and imagination. Perfect for any writer to see the impact that form has or anyone who wants to see how a story can be rewritten in fun and interesting ways.
July 28, 2018
Hands down, this is the funniest and most original book I have ever read. It is screamingly hilarious and witty.
I want the whole of Australia to read it !!
I want the whole of Australia to read it !!
August 20, 2018
Dipped into and out of this gem, not sure if it really is a five star book but the Tweets made me laugh. Mr O'Neil you have made Henry roll in his grave.
September 15, 2018
I'll be reading anything of Ryan O'Neill's. He's a gem! Always clever and funny.
December 6, 2018
It was the same story rewritten a million different ways so at first funny then dreary
October 18, 2019
More literal lols from Ryan O'Neill <3
May 30, 2020
An interesting and regularly humorous exercise which successfully demonstrates its intent of paying homage to Lawson’s iconic short story.
July 11, 2021
Really original and very well done.
July 12, 2021
Quirky an clever. I loved the Children's Book, Glaswegian, Backwards, N+7,The Bush Ballad and Sitcom.
May 6, 2023
So cool I loved all the different interpretations, really clever stuff
June 21, 2023
Can't believe I actually finished it! Not for me.
September 26, 2024
4 ☆ how fun!
Displaying 1 - 30 of 34 reviews