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Thea Astley (1925–2004)

Author of It's Raining in Mango

19+ Works 1,155 Members 34 Reviews 7 Favorited

About the Author

Thea Astley was born in Brisbane in 1925. She attended the University of Queensland before teaching in both Queensland and New South Wales. She was on the staff at Macquarie University in Sydney from 1968 to 1980. Astley has won the Miles Franklin Award four times: The Well Dressed Explorer in show more 1962, The Slow Natives in 1965, The Acolyte in 1972, and Drylands in 2000. Astley's novel, The Multiple Effects of Rainshadow, was nominated in 1997 for the Miles Franklin Award. Thea Astley is featured on the Albert Street (Brisbane) literary trail, which commemorates authors who have used Brisbane as a locale. (Bowker Author Biography) show less

Works by Thea Astley

It's Raining in Mango (1987) 182 copies
Drylands (1999) 143 copies
A Kindness Cup (1974) 90 copies
The Slow Natives (1976) 73 copies
Reaching Tin River (1990) 73 copies
The Acolyte (1972) 67 copies
Coda (1994) 62 copies
Vanishing Points (1992) 61 copies
A Descant for Gossips (1960) 59 copies
Hunting the Wild Pineapple (1979) 59 copies
The Well-dressed Explorer (1962) 52 copies
Beachmasters (1985) 38 copies
Girl With a Monkey (1958) 35 copies
An Item from the Late News (1983) 35 copies
A Boat Load of Home Folk (1968) 24 copies
Two by Astley (1988) 11 copies
Collected Stories (1997) 10 copies

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Reviews

Despite having won a record four Miles Franklins, it is easy to forget how fantastic a writer Thea Astley was. Perhaps this is because it is her later (and, frankly, weaker) work that is more available in second-hand bookstores. Perhaps it's the usual tired cultural-cringe narrative still running through my generation's veins. It certainly can't be because her themes or attitude are dated. Her tales of vaguely unlikable, repressed, judgmental Australians still resonate. Her characters glancing at one another, never looking in the same place at the same time, rarely able to express how they feel, usually unaware of the missed connections. Worrying their teeth along the frayed edges of their cultural norms, unsettled by the new, but unsatisfied with the old.

Astley strikes me as Australia's answer to Muriel Spark, or Margaret Drabble. They too are authors who can seem a bit "dried up" to my generation but - once the book has begun - surprise us with their savagery and insight. And unlike most of Australia's great writers born before 1940 (Patrick White and Christina Stead come to mind), she was truly Australian from birth to death.

The Slow Natives haunts me, and I'm not even sure it's one of her best books. It is, nevertheless, a riveting portrait of the grayness of life and the chances some take to grab at flecks of colour therein - or, more often, the way ordinary people remain blind to those polychromatic moments. Is Astley cruel? Many readers think so. I instead see her as honest, reflecting a guarded, territorial, tall-poppy-obsessed 1960s Australia. I hope our culture has changed in 60 years. I think it has. But, then again, no-one in Astley's fiction seems too far removed from our reality.
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therebelprince | 3 other reviews | Oct 24, 2023 |
Two connected novellas written late in Astley's lifetime. To be honest, I thought the conceit of the first, The Genteel Poverty Bus Company was stronger than the execution, although it has its powerful moments. It is a story of missed connections, of humans attempting to retain individualism in the face of cultural flatness, of raging against the corporate storm, and of memory.

The villain of the first novella returns as a more-rounded character in the second, Inventing the Weather which is classic Astley. She remains one of the greatest writers Australia has yet produced, and - although it's a short and somewhat slight work - this is a very enjoyable meditation on what we try to achieve, and what we do if we fail.… (more)
 
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therebelprince | 1 other review | Oct 24, 2023 |
Wow. This was amazing. I started it to break up the complex Vollmann book I'm reading, and I ended up reading this in one day.
 
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jaydenmccomiskie | 4 other reviews | Sep 27, 2021 |
This is now one of my favourite Australian novels.
 
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jaydenmccomiskie | 3 other reviews | Sep 27, 2021 |

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Works
19
Also by
5
Members
1,155
Popularity
#22,250
Rating
½ 3.7
Reviews
34
ISBNs
114
Languages
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Favorited
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