image of person or book cover 8260539772734775014.jpg
Image courtesy of publisher's website.
y separately published work icon The Starlings single work   novel  
Issue Details: First known date: 2017... 2017 The Starlings
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'It’s March 1985 and Nicky Starling is turning eight, but it’s a sad day. Nicky’s grandmother Didie has just died. Almost worse—his father’s beloved football team has lost the first match of the season.

'Nicky will miss Didie but he still has Rose, Didie’s nurse. He wishes he could love footy, but what he really loves are the tales of King Arthur and stories from Shakespeare that his mother reads to him and that he acts out in his bedroom. But these stories often end badly, an alarming fact for a boy whose family life is starting to fracture.

'Funny, tender and savage, The Starlings is a wonderfully entertaining novel about secrets and defeat, about heroism and love, about what it might mean to lose everything.' (Publication summary)

Notes

  • Dedication: For my sister, Margie, and my brother, John.

  • Epigraph: The hero is one who kindles a great light in the world, who sets up blazing torches in the dark streets of life for men to see by. - Felix Adler

    Paying footy brought out the dark part of my soul... Leigh Matthews

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • Melbourne, Victoria,: Text Publishing , 2017 .
      image of person or book cover 8260539772734775014.jpg
      Image courtesy of publisher's website.
      Extent: 368p.
      Note/s:
      • Published 3 April 2017
      ISBN: 9781925498059

Other Formats

  • Also sound recording.

Works about this Work

Through a Child’s Glass Darkly Peter Craven , 2017 single work essay
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 15 April 2017; (p. 19)
'Every so often a popular book comes along that’s so compelling in its storyline, so vivid in its execution, so skilful at bringing to life its characters, that it makes you want to cheer. So it is with Vivienne Kelly’s The Starlings, a racketing novel set in Melbourne in 1985.' (Introduction)
Through a Child’s Glass Darkly Peter Craven , 2017 single work essay
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 15 April 2017; (p. 19)
'Every so often a popular book comes along that’s so compelling in its storyline, so vivid in its execution, so skilful at bringing to life its characters, that it makes you want to cheer. So it is with Vivienne Kelly’s The Starlings, a racketing novel set in Melbourne in 1985.' (Introduction)
Last amended 10 Sep 2018 10:09:22
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