Amy Witting (1918–2001)
Author of I for Isobel
About the Author
Series
Works by Amy Witting
Associated Works
Regarding Jane Eyre: Writers Respond to Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre (1997) — Contributor — 16 copies
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Legal name
- Fraser, Joan Austral
- Birthdate
- 1918-01-26
- Date of death
- 2001-09-18
- Gender
- female
- Nationality
- Australia
- Birthplace
- Annandale, New South Wales, Australia
- Place of death
- Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
- Education
- University of Sydney
- Occupations
- poet
novelist
short-story writer
teacher - Awards and honors
- Patrick White Award (1993)
Members
Reviews
Lists
Awards
You May Also Like
Associated Authors
Statistics
- Works
- 15
- Also by
- 4
- Members
- 358
- Popularity
- #66,978
- Rating
- 3.7
- Reviews
- 5
- ISBNs
- 38
- Languages
- 1
- Favorited
- 1
he novel was published (with a dreadfully dreary cover) by the inimitable Beatrice Davis, by then at Thomas Nelson rather than at Angus & Robertson where she had made her name. (Davis went on to reject I for Isobel (see my review) and so did McPhee Gribble, which just goes to show that even the best of editors can get it wrong. Because I for Isobel went on to be a bestseller when it was finally published by Penguin in 1990. It won the Fellowship of Australian Writers (FAW) Barbara Ramsden Award; and it was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin. More recognition came in 1993 when Witting won the Patrick White Award, and she went on to publish A Change in the Lighting (1994); Maria’s War (1998), and Isobel on her way to the Corner Shop’ (2000). (This sequel to I for Isobel was short-listed for the Miles Franklin Award 2000, and won The Age Book of the Year Award in the same year.) After Cynthia was published posthumously in 2001. Any Witting is one of a small stable of wonderful Australian women writers whose literary fiction was not just a critical success but also much loved by her readership.
Set in the fictional town of Bangoree, (which may have been a disguised version of the NSW town of Kemspey*), The Visit introduces two character types who emerge in Witting's other novels: Barbara is the introverted, insecure character who is the victim, and her mother-in-law Belle Dutton is the brutal bullying mother figure. Old Mrs Dutton thinks she has just come for a visit, but in fact her other daughter-in-law Ivy has absconded after years of enduring her. She's refusing to come home to her husband Lionel if Mrs Dutton is there, so now it's the hapless Barbara's turn. The cast of characters also includes Barbara's friend Naomi, the town librarian and a single mother; Cathy, a young teacher yearning for but not ready for a long-term relationship; Peter, an adolescent boy wondering if a relationship with his long-absent father would help him in his search for identity; Phil Truebody whose career as a doctor has been sabotaged by his embarrassingly alcoholic wife; and Brian, a teacher who fancies himself as a great actor, but isn't.
The Visit is a work of theatre-fiction. These characters enliven the cultural life of the town with play readings, but when Beckett's Endgame is chosen, they decide (with some heavy-handed insistence from Brian) to stage the play because it's on the sixth-form reading list. The summary at Wikipedia explains the significance of this play to the novel's plot:
Briefly, it is about a blind, paralysed man and his servant who await an unspecified “end” which seems to be the end of their relationship, death, and the end of the actual play itself.
Barbara, the town beauty who knows how useless beauty is, is paralysed into indecision and victimhood by the mother-in-law from hell. Mrs Dutton knows exactly what buttons to push. Barbara's solace is Naomi, single mother to Peter, with issues of her own. This excerpt is a splendid example of Witting's subtle mastery of multiple meanings:
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2022/01/13/the-visit-by-amy-witting/… (more)