'After forty-five years in Sydney, Cassandra Aberline returns to her home town in the Western Australian wheat belt in the same way she left- on the Indian Pacific train.
'As they cross the emptiness of the vast Australian inland, Cassie travels back through her memories, too, frightened that she's about to lose them forever - and with them, her last chance to answer the question that has haunted her almost all her life.' (Publication details)
Epigraph: Who know who you are... A person is a novel: you don't know how it will end until the very last page. Otherwise, it wouldn't be worth reading to the very end. - Yevgeny Zamyatin, We
'I will say at the outset that I was principal supervisor for Glenda Guest’s PhD novel Siddon Rock (2006) which subsequently won the world-wide Commonwealth Writers’ Prize Best First Book (2010) and was long-listed for the Miles Franklin Award, short-listed for the NSW Premier’s Prize Best First Book (the Glenda Adams Award) and for other prizes. So why am I writing this review? Surely there is a conflict of interest. Actually, I am concerned about how many PhD candidates make it as writers, how many publish beyond their doctoral work without supervisory attention, and how many make careers beyond academia. The pages of TEXT seem the ideal place for a review taking this perspective.' (Introduction)
'A Week in the Life of Cassandra Aberline slowly, gently describes a defining period in Cassie’s life when her past and present collide. The book begins as Cassie is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and decides to return home to Perth after spending most of her adult life in Sydney. Her journey westwards across Australia on the Indian Pacific forms the framework of the novel, as she contemplates what has led to this point. ' (Publication summary)
'A Week in the Life of Cassandra Aberline exists on the plane of memories, where grief can enlarge small events and erase larger ones.'
'A Week in the Life of Cassandra Aberline exists on the plane of memories, where grief can enlarge small events and erase larger ones.'
'A Week in the Life of Cassandra Aberline slowly, gently describes a defining period in Cassie’s life when her past and present collide. The book begins as Cassie is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and decides to return home to Perth after spending most of her adult life in Sydney. Her journey westwards across Australia on the Indian Pacific forms the framework of the novel, as she contemplates what has led to this point. ' (Publication summary)
'I will say at the outset that I was principal supervisor for Glenda Guest’s PhD novel Siddon Rock (2006) which subsequently won the world-wide Commonwealth Writers’ Prize Best First Book (2010) and was long-listed for the Miles Franklin Award, short-listed for the NSW Premier’s Prize Best First Book (the Glenda Adams Award) and for other prizes. So why am I writing this review? Surely there is a conflict of interest. Actually, I am concerned about how many PhD candidates make it as writers, how many publish beyond their doctoral work without supervisory attention, and how many make careers beyond academia. The pages of TEXT seem the ideal place for a review taking this perspective.' (Introduction)
