Drylands - Softcover

Astley, Thea

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1925603571 ISBN 13: 9781925603576

Publisher: Text Classics, 2019

Synopsis

In the dying town of Drylands, Janet Deakin sells papers to lonely locals. At night, in her flat above the newsagency, she attempts to write a novel for a world in which no one reads―‘full of people, she envisaged, glaring at a screen that glared glassily back’. Drylands is the story of the townsfolk’s harsh, violent lives. Trenchant and brilliant, Thea Astley’s final novel is a dark portrait of outback Australia in decline.

About this title

About the Author:

Thea Astley was born in Brisbane in 1925. She was a teacher by profession. In 1958 Astley’s first novel, Girl with a Monkey, was published. Over the next four decades she published frequently. Astley won the Miles Franklin Literary Award for The Well Dressed Explorer (1962), her third novel. From the late 1960s until 1980, when she began to write full-time, Astley worked at Macquarie University. Astley won the 1989 Patrick White Award and became an Officer in the Order of Australia in 1992. Her last novel was Drylands (1999), her fourth Miles Franklin winner. A lifelong chain-smoker famed for her sharp wit, Thea Astley died in 2004. She remains one of the most distinctive and influential Australian novelists of the twentieth century.

Review:

‘It is impossible to put this book down. It seethes with energy and passion.’―Herald Sun; ‘Wonderful.’―The Australian

About this edition

• Publisher: Text Classics
• Publication date: 2019
• ISBN 10: 1925603571
• ISBN 13: 9781925603576
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 272