Thea Astley: 6 books

This stylish reissue of one of Thea Astley’s finest early novels is a classic story of small-town life. Two schoolteachers are drawn to each other by their concern for a lonely young girl. As long as Vinny Lalor could remember she had been on the fringe of things—in her family and at school. But...

Kathleen is facing old age alone. Between her selfish children - 'Brain' and his straying wife, and daughter Shamrock and Shamrock's hubby the 'Big Developer' - there is no longer a place for her. But Passing Downs Old People's Home is still not the place for a woman like Kathleen. She is not ready...

When the tourist ship Malekula arrives at a tropic island in the the Pacific the crushing heat and the looming hurricane intensify the hostilities and frustrations of the egocentric people on board. And when the hurricane bursts on the island the havoc it brings is less perhaps than the personal storms...

Loneliness has driven a young school teacher in a small North Queensland town to form an unlikely relationship with a road worker. Harry is older and more experienced than Elsie, but vulnerable through his possessive love for her. In an attempt to escape from him, Elsie obtains a transfer....

Leverson, the narrator at the centre of these stories, calls himself a 'people freak.' Seduced by north Queensland's sultry beauty and unique strangeness, he is as fascinated by the invading hordes of misfits from the south as by the old established Queenslanders. Leverson's ironical yet compassionate view makes every story, every incident, a pointed example of human weakness or strength.

'If one saw behind the faces into the hearts, one would die.' A suburban couple have drifted into the shallows of middle-aged boredom. Their fourteen-year-old son is a stranger, meeting their attempts at love with hostile indifference. Surly at home, he is a dab hand at shoplifting and looks...