Shallows - Softcover

Tim Winton

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0868618004 ISBN 13: 9780868618005

Publisher: Allen & Unwin, 1985

Synopsis

Whales have always been the life-force of Angelus, a small town on the south coast of Western Australia. Their annual passing defines the rhythms of a life where little changes, and the town depends on their carcasses. So when the battle begins on the beaches outside the town, and when Queenie Cookson, a local girl, joins the Greenies to make amends for the crimes of her whaling ancestors, it can only throw everything into chaos.

About this title

From the Back Cover

Shallows is set in a small whaling town in Western Australia, where land-based whaling has been a tradition for over 150 years. When Queenie Cookson decides to join an antiwhaling protest group, she defies her husband, her ancestry, and her community. Winner of the prestigious Miles Franklin Award in Australia, this eloquent and moving novel speaks with immediacy and passion of the conflict between the values of a closeknit, traditional society and the evolving mores of the wider world.

"The world here, the rainy, closed, quiet, claustrophobic world of the southern beach town just a long stone's throw away from Antarctica, is perfectly evoked. . . . The elegance of language, the grandeur of the nature being described . . . all this is dazzling, dazzling. It makes the heart pound."--Carolyn See, Los Angeles Times Book Review

"Animating all 150 years of the settlement's history, [this novel] carries the symbolic weight of its subject matter--of whales and water and meaning of life--as lightly as a wind off the sea. . . . Shallows deserves to find a permanent place as a major work of Australian literature."--Elizabeth Ward, Washington Post Book World

About the Author

Tim Winton has published twenty books for adults and children, and his work has been translated into twenty-five languages. Since his first novel, An Open Swimmer, won the Australian/Vogel Award in 1981, he has won the Miles Franklin Award four times (for Shallows, Cloudstreet, Dirt Music and Breath) and twice been shortlisted for the Booker Prize (for The Riders and Dirt Music). He lives in Western Australia.

Edition details

• Publisher: Allen & Unwin
• Publication date: 1985
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0868618004
• ISBN 13: 9780868618005
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 246