Janette Turner Hospital
Author of Due Preparations for the Plague
About the Author
Janette Turner Hospital is the author of six previous novels, including Oyster and The Last Magician, both of which were New York Times Notable Books of the Year. Her story collections are Isobars and Dislocations, which won the Fellowship of Australian Writers' Fiction Award. A two-time finalist show more for the Australian National Book Award, Hospital is the recipient of numerous other honors and has been published in twelve languages. Originally from Australia, she has lived in Canada, the U.K., France, and India, but now holds a permanent position at the University of South Carolina, where she is Professor and Distinguished Writer in Residence show less
Disambiguation Notice:
Janette Turner Hospital published the novel A Very Proper Death under the pseudonym Alex Juniper.
Image credit: Identity Theory
Works by Janette Turner Hospital
Associated Works
Goodbye to Romance: Stories by New Zealand and Australian Women Writers, 1930-1988 (1989) — Contributor — 10 copies
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Other names
- Juniper, Alex
- Birthdate
- 1942-11-12
- Gender
- female
- Nationality
- Australia
- Birthplace
- Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
- Places of residence
- Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Kingston, Ontario, Canada
Southern India
Columbia, South Carolina, USA - Education
- University of Queensland
Kelvin Grove Teachers College
Queen's University (MA in Medieval Literature) - Occupations
- librarian (Harvard University)
professor (University of South Carolina)
novelist
short-story writer - Relationships
- Hospital, Clifford (husband)
- Organizations
- Queens University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada
Massachusetts Institute of Technology - Awards and honors
- Seal Award (1982)
Queensland Premier's Literary Award (2003)
Davitt Award (2003)
Patrick White Award (2003)
Honorary Doctorate (Letters at University of Queensland ∙ 2003)
Russell Research Award for Humanities and Social Sciences (2003) - Agent
- Jill Hickson Associates
Molly Friedrich (Aaron Priest Literary Agency) - Short biography
- Janette Turner Hospital grew up on the steamy sub-tropical coast of Australia in the north-eastern state of Queensland. She began her teaching career in remote Queensland high schools, but since her graduate studies she has taught in universities in Australia, Canada, England, France and the United States.
- Disambiguation notice
- Janette Turner Hospital published the novel A Very Proper Death under the pseudonym Alex Juniper.
Members
Reviews
Lists
Awards
You May Also Like
Associated Authors
Statistics
- Works
- 17
- Also by
- 9
- Members
- 1,751
- Popularity
- #14,688
- Rating
- 3.7
- Reviews
- 40
- ISBNs
- 194
- Languages
- 6
- Favorited
- 12
If I had to sum up this book in one word, the word would be messy.
Central to the plot is the nerve-gas hijacking' by Muslim fundamentalists of Air France Flight 64 from Paris to New York in the 1980s There are several interlocking stories set over two periods told by different voices, during the hijack and its twelfth year anniversary.
The actual hijack is told in excruciating and harrowing detail. That this is perhaps the clearest and most readable part of the book, should tell you something.
During the hijacking 22 children were released and around the anniversary things come to a head as one of the children Samantha, now an adult tries to work out who was really behind the hijacking, and why the children, now adult, appear to be dying off in unusual circumstances. Was it all a conspiracy theory?
Meanwhile a high-ranking CIA operative dies and leaves a key to his son Lowell, whose mother perished on the flight. Lowell’s mother was leaving her husband for a Jewish violinist, also a flight victim. Nothing is simple here. Lowell is instructed by his dad’s psychiatrist, to not only work out what it is for, but is ordered to keep the contents safe.
Lowell links up with Samantha who has been hounding him for years. He has been ignoring her, but now on the anniversary decides to listen to her. He works out the key from his father is the key to locker #64 (Flight 64, get it?) at the terminal for the ill-fated flight. The locker contains binders of notes and documents as will as tapes.He tries to keep it safe but only half succeeds and shares what is left of his findings (his house has been ransacked) with Samantha. They travel in a row boat to a secret place and sleep the night in a fisherman’s hut lobster netting. Anything for secrecy.
As for the adult hostages, after the children are freed, the plane, now in Iraq, is blown to smithereens. Ten men are still alive and are placed in a sarin-laced bunker, facing death when their protective gear will inevitably fail. They face a slow death, or by removing their protective head gear, a faster one. They choose the latter. With ten minutes to speak before the Saran gets them they remove their protective head-gear and tell. A Yiddish writer does a Hasidic dance, a philosopher delivers a wry deconstructive analysis, two lovers embrace, a diva sings Orlando Gibbons's metaphoric The Silver Swan. Is this meant to be poignant, to be showing the human spirit cannot be squashed? I cannot be sure. And by this time - it was near the end of the book - I didn’t care.… (more)