image of person or book cover 6398073152775590632.jpg
Image courtesy of publisher website.
y separately published work icon Gunflower : Stories selected work   short story  
Issue Details: First known date: 2023... 2023 Gunflower : Stories
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'The brilliant new short story collection from the Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning author of The Animals in That Country.

'A family of cat farmers gets the chance to set the felines free. A group of chickens tells it like it is. A female-crewed ship ploughs through the patriarchy. A support group finds solace in a world without men.

'With her trademark humour, energy, and flair, McKay offers hallucinogenic glimpses of places where dreams subsume reality, where childhood restarts, where humans behave like animals and animals talk like humans.

'The stories in Gunflower explode and bloom in mesmerising ways, showing the world both as it is and as it could be.' (Publication summary)

Notes

  • Author's note: For Brea, Michelle, and Kelly. And for Peter.

    Epigraph: Ah if life were not so fragile,

    Death not so permanent - Ross McKay, 1977

  • Individually published and award-winning stories are indexed on AustLit.

Contents

* Contents derived from the Melbourne, Victoria,:Scribe , 2023 version. Please note that other versions/publications may contain different contents. See the Publication Details.
Those Last Days of Summer, Laura Jean McKay , single work short story
Cats at the Fire Front, Laura Jean McKay , single work short story
Less, Laura Jean McKay , single work short story
Flying Rods, Laura Jean McKay , single work short story
Come and See It All the Way from Town, Laura Jean McKay , single work short story
Lightning Man, Laura Jean McKay , single work short story
Away with It, Laura Jean McKay , single work short story
Nine Days, Laura Jean McKay , single work short story
Reali"Craig Henderson. You are the most attractive real estate agent in the region. When 47 year old Jessica and I", Laura Jean McKay , single work poetry
Smoko, Laura Jean McKay , single work short story
Playhouse, Laura Jean McKay , single work short story
Taking the Cat to Her New Home, Laura Jean McKay , single work short story
Gunflower, Laura Jean McKay , single work short story
Porthole, Laura Jean McKay , single work short story
Getaways, Laura Jean McKay , single work short story
Ranging, Laura Jean McKay , single work short story
This Time, Laura Jean McKay , single work short story
A Sensation of Whirling and a Loss of Balance, Laura Jean McKay , single work short story
Territory, Laura Jean McKay , single work short story
Twenty Twenty, Laura Jean McKay , single work short story

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • Melbourne, Victoria,: Scribe , 2023 .
      image of person or book cover 6398073152775590632.jpg
      Image courtesy of publisher website.
      Extent: 272p.
      Note/s:
      • Published 3 October 2023
      ISBN: 9781922585943

Other Formats

Works about this Work

A Vast Network of Agencies Megan Cheong , 2023 single work review
— Appears in: Meanjin Online 2023;

— Review of Gunflower : Stories Laura Jean McKay , 2023 selected work short story

'If pressed, I would describe Laura Jean McKay’s Gunflower as a collection of stories about bodies. Divided into three sections—‘birth’, ‘life’ and ‘death’—the stories explore the way bodies, with all their needs and desires, are controlled, exploited and disregarded. Yet I like that this doesn’t quite get to the heart of them, that these stories don’t fit together as neatly as that.' (Introduction)

Pleasure and Peril : Short Stories about Embodiment Susan Midalia , 2023 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , December no. 460 2023; (p. 43)

— Review of Gunflower : Stories Laura Jean McKay , 2023 selected work short story
'Laura Jean McKay’s new collection, Gunflower, offers a range of disturbing, deftly satiric, and sometime bizarre short stories. As in her award-winning novel The Animals in that Country (2022), some of the stories in the collection explore the relationship between the human and non-human, and often challenge rational explanations or simple allegorical interpretations for the imaginative worlds they create. Even the conventional realist narratives sometimes defy generic conventions. The story ‘Flying Rods’, for example, moves from standard verisimilitude to Gothic horror. ‘Site’ transforms the familiar terrain of an adulterous affair with repeated descriptions of a ship sighted off the coast, such that the ship’s symbolic meanings remain tantalisingly unclear.' 

(Introduction)          

Strength and Fragility Fused Joy Lawn , 2023 single work review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 21-22 October 2023; (p. 15)

— Review of Gunflower : Stories Laura Jean McKay , 2023 selected work short story
Book Reviews : The Modern, Premonition, Gunflower Rosie Ofori Ward , Annie Yoshida , Georgia White , 2023 single work review
— Appears in: Kill Your Darlings [Online] , October 2023;

— Review of The Modern Anna Kate Blair , 2023 single work novel ; Gunflower : Stories Laura Jean McKay , 2023 selected work short story
Also reviews The Premonition by Banana Yoshimoto
Living Through Allegory Lauren Collee , 2023 single work essay
— Appears in: Sydney Review of Books , October 2023;
‘Ballsy’, ‘very Funny’, ‘read in One Sitting’ : The Best Australian Books Out in October Alyx Gorman , Imogen Dewey , Fiona Wright , Sian Cain , Lucy Clark , Yvonne C Lam , Janine Israel , Celina Ribeiro , Ben Doherty , 2023 single work review
— Appears in: The Guardian Australia , 4 October 2023;

— Review of Edenglassie Melissa Lucashenko , 2023 single work novel ; Stone Yard Devotional Charlotte Wood , 2023 single work novel ; Late : A Novel Michael Fitzgerald Page , 2023 single work novel ; Killing for Country : A Family Story David Marr , 2023 multi chapter work criticism ; Gunflower : Stories Laura Jean McKay , 2023 selected work short story ; The Man Who Wasn't There Dan Box , 2023 single work biography ; Home to Biloela Priya Nadesalingam , Rebekah Holt , 2023 single work autobiography
Book Reviews : The Modern, Premonition, Gunflower Rosie Ofori Ward , Annie Yoshida , Georgia White , 2023 single work review
— Appears in: Kill Your Darlings [Online] , October 2023;

— Review of The Modern Anna Kate Blair , 2023 single work novel ; Gunflower : Stories Laura Jean McKay , 2023 selected work short story
Also reviews The Premonition by Banana Yoshimoto
Strength and Fragility Fused Joy Lawn , 2023 single work review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 21-22 October 2023; (p. 15)

— Review of Gunflower : Stories Laura Jean McKay , 2023 selected work short story
Pleasure and Peril : Short Stories about Embodiment Susan Midalia , 2023 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , December no. 460 2023; (p. 43)

— Review of Gunflower : Stories Laura Jean McKay , 2023 selected work short story
'Laura Jean McKay’s new collection, Gunflower, offers a range of disturbing, deftly satiric, and sometime bizarre short stories. As in her award-winning novel The Animals in that Country (2022), some of the stories in the collection explore the relationship between the human and non-human, and often challenge rational explanations or simple allegorical interpretations for the imaginative worlds they create. Even the conventional realist narratives sometimes defy generic conventions. The story ‘Flying Rods’, for example, moves from standard verisimilitude to Gothic horror. ‘Site’ transforms the familiar terrain of an adulterous affair with repeated descriptions of a ship sighted off the coast, such that the ship’s symbolic meanings remain tantalisingly unclear.' 

(Introduction)          

A Vast Network of Agencies Megan Cheong , 2023 single work review
— Appears in: Meanjin Online 2023;

— Review of Gunflower : Stories Laura Jean McKay , 2023 selected work short story

'If pressed, I would describe Laura Jean McKay’s Gunflower as a collection of stories about bodies. Divided into three sections—‘birth’, ‘life’ and ‘death’—the stories explore the way bodies, with all their needs and desires, are controlled, exploited and disregarded. Yet I like that this doesn’t quite get to the heart of them, that these stories don’t fit together as neatly as that.' (Introduction)

y separately published work icon Laura Jean McKay on Writing Our Present and Future Astrid Edwards (interviewer), 2023 26992316 2023 single work podcast interview

'Laura Jean McKay is a fiction writer, and her latest work is the short story collection Gunflower. Her previous novel, The Animals in That Country, was awarded the international Arthur C. Clarke Award, as well as the Victorian Prize for Literature and the ABIA Small Publishers Adult Book of the Year. Laura was awarded the NZSA Waitangi Day Literary Honours in 2022.' (Introduction)

Living Through Allegory Lauren Collee , 2023 single work essay
— Appears in: Sydney Review of Books , October 2023;
Last amended 28 May 2024 09:59:44
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