image of person or book cover 727513947802574869.jpg
Cover image courtesy of publisher.
y separately published work icon Too Much Lip single work   novel  
Issue Details: First known date: 2018... 2018 Too Much Lip
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'Too much lip, her old problem from way back. And the older she got, the harder it seemed to get to swallow her opinions. The avalanche of bullshit in the world would drown her if she let it; the least she could do was raise her voice in anger.

'Wise-cracking Kerry Salter has spent a lifetime avoiding two things – her hometown and prison. But now her Pop is dying and she’s an inch away from the lockup, so she heads south on a stolen Harley.

'Kerry plans to spend twenty-four hours, tops, over the border. She quickly discovers, though, that Bundjalung country has a funny way of grabbing on to people. Old family wounds open as the Salters fight to stop the development of their beloved river. And the unexpected arrival on the scene of a good-looking dugai fella intent on loving her up only adds more trouble – but then trouble is Kerry’s middle name.

'Gritty and darkly hilarious, Too Much Lip offers redemption and forgiveness where none seems possible.' (Publication summary)

Exhibitions

11562036
18679934
28283479
18160529
18005706
20780096
18667821

Reading Australia

Reading Australia

This work has Reading Australia teaching resources.

Unit Suitable For AC: Senior Secondary English (Unit 2) – could also suit Unit 3

Duration10 weeks

Curriculum Summary

Find a summary table for Australian Curriculum: Literature content descriptions and NSW Syllabus outcomes for this unit.

Themes

Aboriginal history and culture, belonging, Books by Indigenous creators, colonialism, connections to Country, identity, Indigenous, Indigenous culture, Language, racism, resilience, Stolen Generations

General Capabilities

Ethical understanding, Intercultural understanding

Cross-curriculum Priorities

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures

Notes

  • In August 2019, it was announced that Too Much Lip had been optioned for film by Cenozoic Pictures (option taken in May 2019): the film is set to be scripted by Veronica Gleeson with Melissa Lucashenko as co-writer.
  •  Dedication: For my brother David, who swam a river to save my life. 

  • Epigraph: 

    She was charged with shooting the accused, who in giving
    evidence against her, made no secret of what his intensions
    were towards the woman. She, he said, was only a gin, and he
    could do what he liked with her.

    'District Court, Criminal Sittings',

    Brisbane Telegraph, 31 January 1908

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • St Lucia, Indooroopilly - St Lucia area, Brisbane - North West, Brisbane, Queensland,: University of Queensland Press , 2018 .
      image of person or book cover 727513947802574869.jpg
      Cover image courtesy of publisher.
      Extent: 318p.p.
      Note/s:
      • Published July 30, 2018

      ISBN: 9780702259968 (pbk), 9780702261046 (ebook), 0702261041 (ebook), 0702259969
    • New York (City), New York (State),
      c
      United States of America (USA),
      c
      Americas,
      :
      HarperVia ,
      2020 .
      image of person or book cover 7439145725240749379.jpg
      Image courtesy of publisher's website.
      Extent: 1v.p.
      ISBN: 9780063032538, 0063032538
    • London,
      c
      England,
      c
      c
      United Kingdom (UK),
      c
      Western Europe, Europe,
      :
      HarperVia ,
      2021 .
      image of person or book cover 7837969934330058597.jpg
      Image courtesy of publisher's website.
      Extent: 320p.p.
      Note/s:
      • Published 9 December 2021.
      ISBN: 9780063032545
Alternative title: La nostra rabbia
Language: Italian
    • c
      Italy,
      c
      Western Europe, Europe,
      :
      Edizioni Lindau ,
      2021 .
      image of person or book cover 4525005045785611966.jpg
      Image courtesy of publisher's website.
      Extent: 448p.p.
      Note/s:
      • Published 3 June 2021.
      ISBN: 9788833535715

Other Formats

  • Sound recording.
  • Braille.

Works about this Work

Discrepant Homecomings in Melissa Lucashenko’s Too Much Lip and Larissa Behrendt’s After Story Nicholas Birns , 2024 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australia–India Encounters 2024; (p. 83-100)
y separately published work icon No Laughing Matter : Laughter and Masculinities in Contemporary Australian Fiction Jack Brown , Penrith : 2023 28462670 2023 single work thesis 'This dissertation explores the role laughter plays in the construction of masculinities in contemporary Australian fiction. The texts analysed are Christos Tsiolkas’ Loaded (1995), Melissa Lucashenko’s Too Much Lip (2018), and Tim Winton’s Breath (2008). The diversity of these novels allows for an analysis of Greek immigrant, Bundjalung, and Anglo expressions of queer and heteronormative masculinities in Australian literature. The role laughter plays in perpetuating, or challenging, masculine constructions is explored in this dissertation through laughter’s socially corrective and socially defiant functions. Socially corrective laughter is an expression of laughter’s superiority theory, as developed by thinkers such as Thomas Hobbes and Henri Bergson. In relation to masculine hegemonies, this dissertation examines socially corrective laughter’s agency in influencing individuals to conform to dominant discourses by ridiculing counter-hegemonic masculine identities. Socially defiant laughter achieves the opposite effect. This dissertation coins the term ‘socially defiant laughter’ to describe a means of laughing at hegemonic structures to resist the discursive control that hegemonic masculinities have over masculine minorities. While each of the masculine constructions explored in this dissertation convey divergent expectations, a communality is revealed in how Tsiolkas’, Lucashenko’s, and Winton’s expressions of laughter regulate the way individuals engage with these expectations. This dissertation thus shows that socially corrective laughter and socially defiant laughter are central to the acceptance or rejection of masculine hegemonies in Loaded, Too Much Lip, and Breath.' (Publication summary)
The Regional Novel in Australia Emily Potter , Brigid Magner , 2023 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Cambridge History of the Australian Novel 2023;
Writing, Women and the Australian Novel Tanya Dalziell , 2023 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Cambridge History of the Australian Novel 2023;
Five Memorable Trees in Books We Love, from The Magic Faraway Tree to Too Much Lip Claire Nichols , 2022 single work column
— Appears in: ABC News [Online] , August 2022;

'I read a lot of books in my job. And over the last several years, I've noticed an intriguing trend. Trees are popping up everywhere.'

Caitlin Wilson Reviews Too Much Lip by Melissa Lucashenko Caitlin Wilson , 2019 single work
— Appears in: Mascara Literary Review , March no. 23 2019; Mascara Literary Review , December no. 24 2019;

— Review of Too Much Lip Melissa Lucashenko , 2018 single work novel

'If this book were a sound, it would be the roar of a motorcycle down an empty road; bold, and for the moments when it’s in your path, dominating of all your senses. This book swallowed me and churned me in its guts and, as all good books should, spit me back out, a little bit different.' (Introduction)

Six Books that Shock, Delve Deeply and Destroy Pieties : Your Guide to the 2019 Stella Prize Shortlist Camilla Nelson , 2019 single work review
— Appears in: The Conversation , 8 April 2019;

— Review of Little Gods Jenny Ackland , 2018 single work novel ; The Bridge Enza Gandolfo , 2018 single work novel ; Pink Mountain on Locust Island Jamie Marina Lau , 2018 single work novel ; The Erratics Vicki Laveau-Harvie , 2018 single work autobiography ; Too Much Lip Melissa Lucashenko , 2018 single work novel ; Axiomatic Maria Tumarkin , 2018 single work prose
And Still the Birds Sing Karen Wyld , 2019 single work review
— Appears in: Meanjin , Winter vol. 78 no. 2 2019; (p. 188-191)

— Review of The White Girl Tony Birch , 2019 single work novel ; Terra Nullius Claire G. Coleman , 2017 single work novel ; Catching Teller Crow Ambelin Kwaymullina , Ezekiel Kwaymullina , 2018 single work novel ; Too Much Lip Melissa Lucashenko , 2018 single work novel

'As some recently published works have shown, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander storytellers are continuing to embrace fiction-writing as a vessel for speaking truth to power. Constantly branching out into new genres—experimenting, fusing, transforming—there’s a noticeable increase in First Peoples speculative fiction being published in Australia.

With each line across the page, the colonial grip on the continent loosens. Fingers unclasp, story by story. Not all of these stories are from deep time—some are reimagined or even newly born—but they all carry power. Story-trails weave across paper and screen towards a common destination: truth-telling.'  (Introduction)

The Australian Book You Should Read Next : Too Much Lip by Melissa Lucashenko Alice Pung , 2020 single work review
— Appears in: The Guardian Australia , 17 July 2020;

— Review of Too Much Lip Melissa Lucashenko , 2018 single work novel

'A rare and powerful voice of a woman who has been poor and rich, with a lived understanding of the fickleness of each.'

Melissa Lucashenko : Too Much Lip LS , 2018 single work review
— Appears in: The Saturday Paper , 4-10 August 2018;

'It’s the beginning of a Western: an outlaw on the run from police rides into town with a bag of ill-gotten loot. In Melissa Lucashenko’s wonderful Too Much Lip, the outlaw is Kerry Salter, her ride is a stolen Harley and she’s returned to her hometown, Durrongo in northern New South Wales, because her Pop is dying, her girlfriend’s copped five years for armed robbery – and also because Kerry herself needs a place to lie low. But with her demanding family, crooked politicians, sleazy property developers, dodgy estate agents and a hot, six-packed whitefella leaving her “burbling-jumping-fizzing on the inside”, Kerry soon finds small-town life is one big headache.' (Introduction)

Crossroads Jane Sullivan , 2018 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , October no. 405 2018; (p. 46)

'A stranger rides into a one-horse town on a shiny new motorbike. Cue Ennio Morricone music. Except it’s not a stranger, it’s that skinny dark girl Kerry Salter, back to say goodbye to her Pop before he falls off the perch. The first conversation she has is in the Bundjalung language (translated for our benefit) with three cheeky crows. One bites a dead snake in the head and its fangs get wedged onto the bird’s beak, fastening it shut. Chances are it’ll starve to death, thinks Kerry. ‘The eaters and the eaten of Durrongo, having it out at the crossroads.’'  (Introduction)

Taking Back the Island Karen Wyld , 2018 single work essay
— Appears in: Sydney Review of Books , November 2018;

'Melissa Lucashenko’s new novel Too Much Lip is a dark comedy about ordinary people. Set in the fictional Australian town of Durrongo, stories of generations of an Aboriginal family living on Country are shared through a fast-paced plot. Secrets are unravelled, character flaws are revealed. Traces of settler-colonial violence and intergenerational trauma weave through their lives. What Lucashenko leaves readers with is a sense that the family members will heal themselves by protecting Country and supporting each other.' (Introduction)

Grief, Racism and Uncertain Futures: Your Guide to the 2019 Miles Franklin Shortlist Jen Webb , 2019 single work column
— Appears in: The Conversation , 30 July 2019;

'I think it’s fair to say that each year the selected novels on the Miles Franklin shortlist manifest the zeitgeist, reflecting on some of the issues that are troubling society.' (Introduction) 

With Wit and Tenderness, Miles Franklin Winner Melissa Lucashenko Writes Back to the ‘Whiteman’s World’ Jen Webb , 2019 single work column
— Appears in: The Conversation , 30 July 2019;

'Too Much Lip joins the other prizewinning volumes in Melissa Lucashenko’s trophy cabinet. Her first-ever novel, Steam Pigs (1997), was shortlisted for or won several major prizes, and in the past two decades her books have racked up 26 awards.' (Introduction)

Last amended 14 May 2024 09:53:23
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