So this is Life - Softcover

Manne, Anne

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0522858201 ISBN 13: 9780522858204

Publisher: Melbourne University, 2024

Synopsis

So This is Life is a wonderfully evocative account of youth that will surely take its place among the classics of Australian childhood. At age seven, after her parents' marriage broke down, Anne Manne travelled with her mother and sisters from Adelaide to the Central Victorian countryside to begin a new life. So This Is Life is not a conventional memoir but a haunting and luminous account told through stories - unexpected moments of epiphany - where meaning, suddenly and sometimes shockingly, reveals itself. Possessing an astonishingly faithful and vivid memory of the pain, fear and joy of childhood; a sensibility keenly alive to the beauty of the landscape, the fellow-creatureliness of animals and the comedy, tragedy and dignity of the lives of the country folk she grew up among, So This Is Life shows a powerful moral vision being shaped, about the meaning of kindness, and the desolation of grief. It depicts worlds as far apart as the faded gentility of former goldfields wealth, and the patriarchal spivvery of the country racetrack. Full of inconsolable pain but also impish humour, these stories sparkle like gems.

About this title

About the Author:

Anne Manne's works include the Quarterly Essay, 'Love and Money: The Family and the Free Market' and Motherhood: How Should We Care for Our Children.

Review:

"A beautiful memoir that is sure to have many meandering into the country this summer." —Wendy Hall, Courier Mail (January 2011)

About this edition

• Publisher: Melbourne University
• Publication date: 2024
• ISBN 10: 0522858201
• ISBN 13: 9780522858204
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 162