image of person or book cover 6622128037523998896.jpg
This image has been sourced from online.
y separately published work icon Blue Skies single work   novel  
Issue Details: First known date: 1976... 1976 Blue Skies
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'A young wife and mother watches a clock that seems forever stuck at three-in-the-afternoon. Her neighbour obsesses over the front lawn, and the women at the local beach chatter about knitting patterns. Her husband didn't come home last night.

'She lives for Tuesdays and Thursdays, when the baby is with Mother-in-law and she can escape to a less humdrum life. Jonathan, man about town, is Tuesday. Ben, a freethinking artist, is Thursday.

'But Jonathan is in serious trouble, and Thursdays are turning sour. Very sour.

'A brilliant, acerbic tale of a crack-up in stultifying suburbia, Blue Skies marked the emergence of a unique voice in Australian fiction.' (Abstract for 2011 publication from Text Publishing website.)

Notes

  • Reading Group Guide available through the Text Publishing website.

Contents

* Contents derived from the Melbourne, Victoria,:Text Publishing , 2011 version. Please note that other versions/publications may contain different contents. See the Publication Details.
Introduction, Danielle Wood , essay

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • London,
      c
      England,
      c
      c
      United Kingdom (UK),
      c
      Western Europe, Europe,
      :
      Duckworth ,
      1976 .
      image of person or book cover 6622128037523998896.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 104p.
      Note/s:
      • Dedication: For Joan Woodbury
      ISBN: 0715611771
    • Ringwood, Ringwood - Croydon - Kilsyth area, Melbourne - East, Melbourne, Victoria,: Penguin , 1980 .
      image of person or book cover 3176011553401957453.png
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 109p.
      ISBN: 0140048081
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Blue Skies & Jack and Jill Helen Hodgman , Camden : Virago , 1989 Z422759 1989 selected work novel satire Camden : Virago , 1989
    • Melbourne, Victoria,: Text Publishing , 2011 .
      image of person or book cover 3369613709594782850.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 176p.
      Reprinted: 29 May 2017
      Note/s:
      • Publication date: 28 February 2011.
      ISBN: 9781921758133 (pbk.), 9781925498370 (ebk)
      Series: y separately published work icon Text Classics Text Publishing (publisher), Melbourne : Text Publishing , 2012- Z1851461 2012 series - publisher novel 'Great books by great Australian storytellers.' (Text website.)
Alternative title: Gleichbleibend Schön: Roman
Language: German
    • Munich,
      c
      Germany,
      c
      Western Europe, Europe,
      :
      Albrecht Knaus ,
      2012 .
      image of person or book cover 5902697149539140145.jpg
      Image courtesy of publisher's website.
      Extent: 193p.p.
      Note/s:
      • Published 27th August 2012.
      ISBN: 9783813504729

Other Formats

  • Also sound recording.
  • Braille.

Works about this Work

"I Sat Back...and Waited to Die" : The Erasure of Self as a Response to Motherhood in Helen Hodgman's Blue Skies Barbara Mattar , 2019 single work criticism
— Appears in: Hecate , vol. 45 no. 1/2 2019; (p. 43-55, 310)

'This paper offers a close analysis of an under-researched Australian novel, Blue Skies by Helen Hodgman, that represents pregnancy and early motherhood as a burdensome, joyless responsibility from which the mother must escape. The un-named first person narrator is unable and unwilling to transition into "a role I didn't choose." Deliberately shunning the 'discourses' of a good suburban mother, the narrator chooses risk and individuality over attributes typical of "good motherhood." The narrative explores her path to self-erasure by reflecting on the natural landscape of coastal Hobart and through the use of Tasmanian Gothic (Davidson). Hodgman's text is a complete denial "matrescence" and positions self-erasure as the only possible outcome where the transition to cultural norms of good motherhood has failed. The lack of naming the mother acts as metaphor for the silence surrounding the loss of womanhood and the absence of any maternal subject position. Blue Skies is a key literary example of the views of motherhood that second wave feminism held it to be a state of erasure, where women claimed that wifehood and motherhood made them feel as though they didn't exist-a problem with no name, as Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique documented back in 1963.' (Publication abstract)

The Silver Age of Fiction Peter Pierce , 2011 single work criticism
— Appears in: Meanjin , Summer vol. 70 no. 4 2011; (p. 110-115)

‘In human reckoning, Golden Ages are always already in the past. The Greek poet Hesiod, in Works and Days, posited Five Ages of Mankind: Golden, Silver, Bronze, Heroic and Iron (Ovid made do with four). Writing in the Romantic period, Thomas Love Peacock (author of such now almost forgotten novels as Nightmare Abbey, 1818) defined The Four Ages of Poetry (1820) in which their order was Iron, Gold, Silver and Bronze. To the Golden Age, in their archaic greatness, belonged Homer and Aeschylus. The Silver Age, following it, was less original, but nevertheless 'the age of civilised life'. The main issue of Peacock's thesis was the famous response that he elicited from his friend Shelley - Defence of Poetry (1821).’ (Publication abstract)

Trapped in the Bland Hell of Australian Suburbia Johanna Leggatt , 2011 single work review
— Appears in: The Sun-Herald , 26 June 2011; (p. 7)

— Review of Blue Skies Helen Hodgman , 1976 single work novel
A Keen Eye on Tasmanian Life Peter Pierce , 2011 single work review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 22-24 April 2011; (p. 32)

— Review of Blue Skies Helen Hodgman , 1976 single work novel
Desperate Times Brenda Niall , 2011 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , April no. 330 2011; (p. 23)

— Review of Blue Skies Helen Hodgman , 1976 single work novel
Third Time Lucky for Amorality Tale Melinda Harvey , 2011 single work review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 26-27 February 2011; (p. 21)

— Review of Blue Skies Helen Hodgman , 1976 single work novel
Re-asses Hodgman's novel on the occasion of a new, third edition.
Fiction William Yeoman , 2011 single work review
— Appears in: The West Australian , 26 February 2011; (p. 20)

— Review of Blue Skies Helen Hodgman , 1976 single work novel
The Sky Stays Blue for '70s Suburban Ennui Emma Young , 2011 single work review
— Appears in: The Saturday Age , 12 March 2011; (p. 36)

— Review of Blue Skies Helen Hodgman , 1976 single work novel
Against the Tide Ian McFarlane , 2011 single work review
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 19 March 2011; (p. 23)

— Review of Blue Skies Helen Hodgman , 1976 single work novel
Cover Notes Lucy Sussex , 2011 single work review
— Appears in: The Sunday Age , 3 April 2011; (p. 21)

— Review of Blue Skies Helen Hodgman , 1976 single work novel
The Silver Age of Fiction Peter Pierce , 2011 single work criticism
— Appears in: Meanjin , Summer vol. 70 no. 4 2011; (p. 110-115)

‘In human reckoning, Golden Ages are always already in the past. The Greek poet Hesiod, in Works and Days, posited Five Ages of Mankind: Golden, Silver, Bronze, Heroic and Iron (Ovid made do with four). Writing in the Romantic period, Thomas Love Peacock (author of such now almost forgotten novels as Nightmare Abbey, 1818) defined The Four Ages of Poetry (1820) in which their order was Iron, Gold, Silver and Bronze. To the Golden Age, in their archaic greatness, belonged Homer and Aeschylus. The Silver Age, following it, was less original, but nevertheless 'the age of civilised life'. The main issue of Peacock's thesis was the famous response that he elicited from his friend Shelley - Defence of Poetry (1821).’ (Publication abstract)

Introduction Danielle Wood , 2011 essay
— Appears in: Blue Skies 2011;
"I Sat Back...and Waited to Die" : The Erasure of Self as a Response to Motherhood in Helen Hodgman's Blue Skies Barbara Mattar , 2019 single work criticism
— Appears in: Hecate , vol. 45 no. 1/2 2019; (p. 43-55, 310)

'This paper offers a close analysis of an under-researched Australian novel, Blue Skies by Helen Hodgman, that represents pregnancy and early motherhood as a burdensome, joyless responsibility from which the mother must escape. The un-named first person narrator is unable and unwilling to transition into "a role I didn't choose." Deliberately shunning the 'discourses' of a good suburban mother, the narrator chooses risk and individuality over attributes typical of "good motherhood." The narrative explores her path to self-erasure by reflecting on the natural landscape of coastal Hobart and through the use of Tasmanian Gothic (Davidson). Hodgman's text is a complete denial "matrescence" and positions self-erasure as the only possible outcome where the transition to cultural norms of good motherhood has failed. The lack of naming the mother acts as metaphor for the silence surrounding the loss of womanhood and the absence of any maternal subject position. Blue Skies is a key literary example of the views of motherhood that second wave feminism held it to be a state of erasure, where women claimed that wifehood and motherhood made them feel as though they didn't exist-a problem with no name, as Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique documented back in 1963.' (Publication abstract)

Last amended 13 Apr 2023 13:41:30
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