In the Shade of the Shady Tree: Stories of Wheatbelt Australia

by John Kinsella

Overview

In the Shade of the Shady Tree is a collection of stories set in the Western Australian wheatbelt, a vast grain-growing area that ranges across the southwestern end of the immense Australian interior. Kinsella’s stories offer glimpses into the lives of the people who call this area home, as the reader journeys from just north of the town of Geraldton to the far eastern and southern shires of the region.

Cast against a backdrop of indigenous dispossession, settler migration, and the destructive impact of land-clearing and monocultural farming methods, the stories offer moments of connection with the inhabitants, ranging from the matter-of-fact to the bizarre and inexplicable. Something about the nature of the place wrestles with all human interactions and affects their outcomes. The land itself is a dominant character, with dust, gnarled scrubland, and the need for rain underpinning human endeavor. Inflected with both contemporary ideas of short fiction and the “everyman” tradition of Australian storytelling, this collection will introduce many readers to a new landscape and unforgettable characters.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780804040501
Publisher:	Ohio University Press
Publication date:	02/12/2012
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	190
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

John Kinsella’s highly regarded books of poetry include Peripheral Light:Selected and New Poems and Jam Tree Gully. He is also the author of numerous plays and collections of short stories and essays. He taught at KenyonCollege in Ohio and now is a Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge University, and a Professorial Research Fellow at the University of Western Australia. He lives at Jam Tree Gully in Western Australia.

Table of Contents

Preface Acknowledgments rain purchase the fireball carcass mange the cartesian diver memorial a load of bricks the pact the porch embarrassed baby the garden the vacant block the house near the cemetery the appointment the fable of the gravel pit the donation dozer the graduation bad credit rule in favor cave visit bats in the shade of the shady tree drive eyewitness the purple suit parade sissy the life history of a wheatbelt music teacher the offering the legend ofthe boat

Editorial Reviews

The chief strength of this large group of 33 ‘glimpses’ in Shady Tree is the direct writing style, a frankness driven by Kinsella’s complicated sense of purpose…. The book is a story collage that evokes the range of loneliness and togetherness of the region’s people…. Powerful.” —The National


“The stories are full of secrets, both open and closed, and they are fascinated with how they operate in this kind of (rural Australian) society. This leads to a mood which is sometimes gothic and something more emaciated, like the hungry banality that is so unnerving in the work of Raymond Carver…. (The) cumulative effect is highly satisfying and affecting. It is yet another crucial work by this important Australian author.”—Southerly


“John Kinsella can see into the heart of the country, and the evidence of these taut, complex stories is that what he sees there is both ferocious and unresolved.”—The Australian


"Unusual fiction in a strange place of extremes…. These stories read like slices of life, each with real place names. Yet the stories' endings are fictionally important, meaningful or mysterious, always unexpected…. (An) extraordinary collection.”—NewPages Book Reviews


“In the tradition of the long line of small-town serials, dating back through Sherwood Anderson and William Faulkner, most of the stories in In the Shade of the Shady Tree explore the dysfunctional undercurrents that characterize rural life in literature.”—ForeWord Reviews

From the Publisher