Joe Cinque's Consolation
Sydney
:
Pan Macmillan Australia
,
2004
Z1132428
2004
single work
prose
(taught in 26 units)
'In October 1997 a clever young law student at ANU made a bizarre plan to murder her devoted boyfriend after a dinner party at their house. Some of the dinner guests - most of them university students - had heard rumours of the plan. Nobody warned Joe Cinque. He died one Sunday, in his own bed, of a massive dose of rohypnol and heroin. His girlfriend and her best friend were charged with murder. Helen Garner followed the trials in the ACT Supreme Court. Compassionate but unflinching, this is a book about how and why Joe Cinque died. It probes the gap between ethics and the law; examines the helplessness of the courts in the face of what we think of as 'evil'; and explores conscience, culpability, and the battered ideal of duty of care.' (Source: Pan Macmillan website)
Garner takes 'a deliberately subjective and "literary" approach' to her material with an 'emphasis on a sympatheitic authorial persona as the source of the reader's perspective' (Susan Lever 'The Crimes of the Past: Anna Funder's Stasiland and Helen Garner's Joe Cinque's Consolation'. Paper delivered at the Association for the Study of Australian Literature (ASAL) conference 2006).
The Secret River
Melbourne
:
Text Publishing
,
2005
Z1194031
2005
single work
novel
historical fiction
(taught in 69 units)
'In 1806 William Thornhill, a man of quick temper and deep feelings, is transported from the slums of London to New South Wales for the term of his natural life. With his wife Sal and their children he arrives in a harsh land he cannot understand.
'But the colony can turn a convict into a free man. Eight years later Thornhill sails up the Hawkesbury to claim a hundred acres for himself.
'Aboriginal people already live on that river. And other recent arrivals - Thomas Blackwood, Smasher Sullivan and Mrs Herring - are finding their own ways to respond to them.
'Thornhill, a man neither better nor worse than most, soon has to make the most difficult choice of his life.
'Inspired by research into her own family history, Kate Grenville vividly creates the reality of settler life, its longings, dangers and dilemmas. The Secret River is a brilliantly written book, a groundbreaking story about identity, belonging and ownership.' (From the publisher's website.)
My Life as a Fake
Milsons Point
:
Random House Australia
,
2003
Z1045776
2003
single work
novel
(taught in 8 units)
Sarah Wode-Douglas is an aristocratic woman who has made her living as the editor of the poetry magazine "First Proof", until she impulsively follows a friend to Kuala Lumpur. She meets Christopher Chubb, an enigmatic wreck of a man whose terrible secrets Sarah is compelled to discover and pursue. (Source: Trove)
Friendly Fire
Artarmon
:
Giramondo Publishing
,
2005
Z1219373
2005
selected work
poetry
satire
(taught in 2 units)
This course will introduce you to a set of debates about Australian writing, and writing in Australia. The set texts are on major issues like colonisation, contemporary feminism, literary hoaxes and the war in Iraq. All raise debates about the relationship between literary fiction and the study of history; several have prompted major debate among reviewers and critics in the print media and academic journals.
The teaching and assessment modes in this course are designed to develop your skills in researching, understanding, and participating in debates about literature. Rather than familiarising you with a broad range of texts, the intensive study of a small number of books is intended to equip you with ways of understanding contemporary writing, and the critical debates it prompts.
10%
Essay - Comparison of Book Reviews
25%
Annotated Bibliography - Research Essay Preparation
15%
Research Essay
50%
