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y separately published work icon The Salt of Broken Tears single work   novel  
Issue Details: First known date: 1999... 1999 The Salt of Broken Tears
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'On a farm on the edge of the endless, remote salt flats of Australia, an embattled family struggles in the midst of the Depression to scrape out an existence and survive the dust and despair. Regular visitors are few - only the Debt Adjuster and the wandering Indian hawker, Cabel Singh - until the day Eileen, a mysterious young woman, blows in from nowhere and alters the family's precarious equilibrium. The boy is fascinated by her, his mother despises her, and Joe, the brutish farmhand and the boy's idol, wants to possess her. When Eileen suddenly disappears, the only trace of her a torn and bloodied dress, the boy saddles up his horse, takes his pup, and sets out to find her. Traveling through the bleak, unforgiving country, the boy encounters a bizarre array of lost souls scattered across the wasteland: a bone-collector living in a ghost town at the end of a gleaming new railway line; an isolated crew of Italian woodcutters who speak of an imprisoned husband, manacled by his wife in a farmhouse basement; a man on a bicycle who recalls his soldier days in Paris after the Great War; and river dwellers who take the boy to a pajama-wearing corpse lying aloft in a tree. Throughout these strange meetings, rumours of the enigmatic Cabel Singh drift like the desert dust, and as the boy journeys on, he becomes aware of another party whose path is converging murderously with his own.'--Book Jacket.

Notes

  • Dedication: To my parents, Francis and Sheila.

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • Milsons Point, North Sydney - Lane Cove area, Sydney Northern Suburbs, Sydney, New South Wales,: Vintage Australia , 1999 .
      image of person or book cover 1774194003086209124.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 297p.
      ISBN: 0091839130
    • New York (City), New York (State),
      c
      United States of America (USA),
      c
      Americas,
      :
      Arcade ,
      2001 .
      image of person or book cover 4721203579987505204.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 297p.
      Edition info: 1st North American ed.
      ISBN: 1559705671
    • London,
      c
      England,
      c
      c
      United Kingdom (UK),
      c
      Western Europe, Europe,
      :
      Vintage UK ,
      2001 .
      image of person or book cover 8914966418362180368.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 297p.
      Edition info: ist. British ed.
      ISBN: 0099286483 (pbk.)

Other Formats

Works about this Work

Murray-Mallee Imaginaries : Towards a Literary History of a Region Emily Potter , Brigid Magner , 2018 single work criticism
— Appears in: JASAL , vol. 1 no. 18 2018;
Circling with Ghosts: The Search for Redemption Margaret Merrilees , 2007 single work criticism
— Appears in: JASAL , Special Issue 2007; (p. 65-76)
'This article explores the ways in which Michael Meehan's The Salt of Broken Tears (referred to hereafter as Salt) might be read as an allegorical quest for redemption. I refer also to Patrick White's Voss, to the extent that it provides an obvious antecedent, and an ironic archetype of the "explorer" tale. Voss provides a useful juxtaposition to Salt, in that they both represent quests, and futile quests at that. Both are historical novels, using a distanced past to illuminate a particular (different) present. Both novels illustrate an Australian masculinity haunted by a lost sense of "rightness": not just of "right-doing", but also of fitness, comprehensibility, belonging. The masculine is presented as both mirrored and haunted by the feminine. There are two key elements in the construction of this masculinity: violence, and deprivation or "lack". I am interested in how these elements drive the masculine quest, and how this masculine quest mirrors the broader Australian longing for redemption, or perhaps absolution.' (p.65)
Salt-Lakes and Swamps : Michael Meehan's Australian Environments Greg Pritchard , 2006 single work criticism
— Appears in: Colloquy : Text Theory Critique , November no. 12 2006;

'Although The Salt of Broken Tears and Stormy Weather are set in the Mallee, one depicts a world of heat, dust and salt, whereas the other is an account of one day in the small town of Towaninnie on which the rain is unceasing. A major symbol of the first novel is the salt-lake, and of the second, the fecund greenness of the rabbiter's swamp. This paper will examine the way these two disparate environments affect the novels' characters and influence the narrative, and what both novels suggest about Australians' relationship with their environment.'

Source: Colloquy : Text Theory Critique, no.12 November 2006 Sighted: 12/07/2007
A Haunted Land John McLaren , 2005 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australian Studies , vol. 20 no. 1&2 2005; (p. 139-153)
'Since the nineteenth century, Australian art and writing has had a double vision of the country, as a sunny land of opportunity, and as a place of loneliness and loss. [...] Recent fiction by white writers has, like Lawson, shown an awareness of the strangeness of the land, but it locates this strangeness more directly in the brutality and defeats of settlement. The sufferings of both settlers and of those they violently displaced continue to haunt their successors' (139). The paper examines the nature of this haunting in recent novels by white Australian writers.
Saying Places : Finding a 'Voice' in Landscape Lesley Williams , 2004 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Regenerative Spirit : Volume 2 : (Un)settling, (Dis)locations, (Post-)colonial, (Re)presentations - Australian Post-Colonial Reflections 2004; (p. 272-282)
Williams sees fiction as a means of enhancing and understanding landscape, and explores the way that the landscape, being integral to the novel's plot and character, 'speaks' to the reader in The Salt of Broken Tears.
Magical Mystery Tour Joan Slagle , 2002 single work review
— Appears in: Antipodes , June vol. 16 no. 1 2002; (p. 84)

— Review of The Salt of Broken Tears Michael Meehan , 1999 single work novel
Books in Brief Craig Cormick , 2000 single work review
— Appears in: Blast , Autumn no. 41 2000; (p. 23)

— Review of The Salt of Broken Tears Michael Meehan , 1999 single work novel ; Kadaitcha : A Novel Peter Bulkeley , 1999 single work novel
Her Kingdom for a Horse Michael Sharkey , 1999 single work review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 3-4 July 1999; (p. 11)

— Review of Pegasus in the Suburbs Jennifer Kremmer , 1999 single work novel ; The Salt of Broken Tears Michael Meehan , 1999 single work novel
Meehan's Out Katharine England , 1999 single work review
— Appears in: The Advertiser , 3 July 1999; (p. 25)

— Review of The Salt of Broken Tears Michael Meehan , 1999 single work novel
Books in Brief David Brearley , 1999 single work review
— Appears in: The Australian's Review of Books , July vol. 4 no. 6 1999; (p. 24)

— Review of The Salt of Broken Tears Michael Meehan , 1999 single work novel
Saying Places : Finding a 'Voice' in Landscape Lesley Williams , 2004 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Regenerative Spirit : Volume 2 : (Un)settling, (Dis)locations, (Post-)colonial, (Re)presentations - Australian Post-Colonial Reflections 2004; (p. 272-282)
Williams sees fiction as a means of enhancing and understanding landscape, and explores the way that the landscape, being integral to the novel's plot and character, 'speaks' to the reader in The Salt of Broken Tears.
Circling with Ghosts: The Search for Redemption Margaret Merrilees , 2007 single work criticism
— Appears in: JASAL , Special Issue 2007; (p. 65-76)
'This article explores the ways in which Michael Meehan's The Salt of Broken Tears (referred to hereafter as Salt) might be read as an allegorical quest for redemption. I refer also to Patrick White's Voss, to the extent that it provides an obvious antecedent, and an ironic archetype of the "explorer" tale. Voss provides a useful juxtaposition to Salt, in that they both represent quests, and futile quests at that. Both are historical novels, using a distanced past to illuminate a particular (different) present. Both novels illustrate an Australian masculinity haunted by a lost sense of "rightness": not just of "right-doing", but also of fitness, comprehensibility, belonging. The masculine is presented as both mirrored and haunted by the feminine. There are two key elements in the construction of this masculinity: violence, and deprivation or "lack". I am interested in how these elements drive the masculine quest, and how this masculine quest mirrors the broader Australian longing for redemption, or perhaps absolution.' (p.65)
Salt-Lakes and Swamps : Michael Meehan's Australian Environments Greg Pritchard , 2006 single work criticism
— Appears in: Colloquy : Text Theory Critique , November no. 12 2006;

'Although The Salt of Broken Tears and Stormy Weather are set in the Mallee, one depicts a world of heat, dust and salt, whereas the other is an account of one day in the small town of Towaninnie on which the rain is unceasing. A major symbol of the first novel is the salt-lake, and of the second, the fecund greenness of the rabbiter's swamp. This paper will examine the way these two disparate environments affect the novels' characters and influence the narrative, and what both novels suggest about Australians' relationship with their environment.'

Source: Colloquy : Text Theory Critique, no.12 November 2006 Sighted: 12/07/2007
A Haunted Land John McLaren , 2005 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australian Studies , vol. 20 no. 1&2 2005; (p. 139-153)
'Since the nineteenth century, Australian art and writing has had a double vision of the country, as a sunny land of opportunity, and as a place of loneliness and loss. [...] Recent fiction by white writers has, like Lawson, shown an awareness of the strangeness of the land, but it locates this strangeness more directly in the brutality and defeats of settlement. The sufferings of both settlers and of those they violently displaced continue to haunt their successors' (139). The paper examines the nature of this haunting in recent novels by white Australian writers.
The Courier-Mail Book of the Year Shortlist [2000] Rosemary Sorensen , 2000 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Courier-Mail , 30 September 2000; (p. 5)
Last amended 11 Jun 2020 15:00:48
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