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Issue Details: First known date: 1987... 1987 It's Raining in Mango : Pictures from the Family Album
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

Wresting his family from the easy living of nineteenth-century Sydney, Cornelius Laffey takes them to northern Queensland where thousands of hopefuls are digging for gold in the mud. They confront the horror of Aboriginal dispossession, and Cornelius is sacked for reporting the slaughter. This is an unforgettable tale of the other side of Australia's heritage.

Source: Penguin Random House Australia.

(https://penguin.com.au/books/its-raining-in-mango-popular-penguins-9780143204749)

Exhibitions

18005749
18005672

Reading Australia

Reading Australia

This work has Reading Australia teaching resources.

Unit Suitable For

AC: Year 10 (NSW Stage 5). Also suitable for Year 11 or Year 12 Literature.

Themes

Aboriginality, Australian identity, belonging, connection to place, family relationships, generation gap, identity, isolation, love, memory, otherness, postcolonialism, racism

General Capabilities

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures

Notes

  • A sequence of stories, tracing a family from their move from Sydney to Cooktown in the 1860s, through to the 1980s. A saga of four generations.
  • This work is frequently referred to as a novel and can be read as either a collection of short stories or a single novel.

Contents

* Contents derived from the New York (City), New York (State),
c
United States of America (USA),
c
Americas,
:
G. P. Putnam's Sons , 1987 version. Please note that other versions/publications may contain different contents. See the Publication Details.
How to Get Sacked, Thea Astley , single work short story
The arrival of the Laffey family among the frontier violence of Queensland's north becomes the topic of family reminiscences with a particular focus on Cornelius Laffey, a journalist, who wrote of the family's experiences and the behaviours and events they witnessed.
(p. 17-34)
Getting to Know Them, Thea Astley , single work short story (p. 35-43)
Cross the Wide Missouri, Thea Astley , single work short story (p. 44-57)
Singles, Thea Astley , single work short story
Following the disappearance of her husband, Jessica Olive supports her family by running a hotel. Her two boys succeed in making their own way in the world and, as Jessica ages, she makes fewer concessions to the male-dominated world in which she is bound.
(p. 58-71)
Heart Is Where the Home Is, Thea Astley , single work short story (p. 72-79)
Right Off the Map, Thea Astley , single work short story (p. 80-87)
Getting There, Thea Astley , single work short story
An adolescent girl endures the emotional turbulence of humiliation inflicted by the nuns at her boarding school, as well as the thrill of the first innocent stirrings of attraction to a stranger she encounters at the library.
(p. 88-96)
The Kiss, the Fade-Out, the Credits, Thea Astley , single work short story (p. 97-108)
Committing Sideways, Thea Astley , single work short story
The death of an uncle facilitates a reunion between the orphaned niece and nephew he had raised. Will, scarred by his war experiences, is comforted by his sister, Connie.
(p. 109-124)
Build-Up, Thea Astley , single work short story (p. 125-143)
Grass, Thea Astley , single work short story
Ageing Will Laffey finds he can no longer handle the task of keeping the grass on his property under control. His nephew brokers a deal with some friends to take on the task, and this leads to a new phase in Will's life.
(p. 144-160)
It's Raining in Mango, Thea Astley , single work short story
For Aboriginal man, Billy Mumbler, life in north Queensland offers a precarious existence, particularly under the watchful eye of the law. Trying to live peacably and protect his family proves almost impossible.
(p. 161-176)
Old Man in a Dry Month, Thea Astley , single work short story
Gentle and ageing Will Laffey has never been able to form a close relationship with anyone, other than his sister Connie. When he becomes enamoured of one of a group of young people he has allowed to live on his property, the youth's callous indifference and rejection is too much for Will to bear.
(p. 177-200)
Source Material, Thea Astley , single work short story (p. 201-208)
* Contents derived from the Ringwood, Ringwood - Croydon - Kilsyth area, Melbourne - East, Melbourne, Victoria,:Penguin , 1989 version. Please note that other versions/publications may contain different contents. See the Publication Details.
How to Get Sacked, Thea Astley , single work short story
The arrival of the Laffey family among the frontier violence of Queensland's north becomes the topic of family reminiscences with a particular focus on Cornelius Laffey, a journalist, who wrote of the family's experiences and the behaviours and events they witnessed.
(p. 17-36)
Getting to Know Them, Thea Astley , single work short story (p. 37-47)
Cross the Wide Missouri, Thea Astley , single work short story (p. 49-64)
Singles, Thea Astley , single work short story
Following the disappearance of her husband, Jessica Olive supports her family by running a hotel. Her two boys succeed in making their own way in the world and, as Jessica ages, she makes fewer concessions to the male-dominated world in which she is bound.
(p. 65-80)
Heart Is Where the Home Is, Thea Astley , single work short story (p. 81-90)
Right Off the Map, Thea Astley , single work short story (p. 91-100)
Getting There, Thea Astley , single work short story
An adolescent girl endures the emotional turbulence of humiliation inflicted by the nuns at her boarding school, as well as the thrill of the first innocent stirrings of attraction to a stranger she encounters at the library.
(p. 101-111)
The Kiss, the Fade-Out, the Credits, Thea Astley , single work short story (p. 113-126)
Committing Sideways, Thea Astley , single work short story
The death of an uncle facilitates a reunion between the orphaned niece and nephew he had raised. Will, scarred by his war experiences, is comforted by his sister, Connie.
(p. 127-144)
Build-Up, Thea Astley , single work short story (p. 145-165)
Grass, Thea Astley , single work short story
Ageing Will Laffey finds he can no longer handle the task of keeping the grass on his property under control. His nephew brokers a deal with some friends to take on the task, and this leads to a new phase in Will's life.
(p. 167-185)
It's Raining in Mango, Thea Astley , single work short story
For Aboriginal man, Billy Mumbler, life in north Queensland offers a precarious existence, particularly under the watchful eye of the law. Trying to live peacably and protect his family proves almost impossible.
(p. 187-204)
Old Man in a Dry Month, Thea Astley , single work short story
Gentle and ageing Will Laffey has never been able to form a close relationship with anyone, other than his sister Connie. When he becomes enamoured of one of a group of young people he has allowed to live on his property, the youth's callous indifference and rejection is too much for Will to bear.
(p. 205-230)
Source Material, Thea Astley , single work short story (p. 231-240)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • Ringwood, Ringwood - Croydon - Kilsyth area, Melbourne - East, Melbourne, Victoria,: Viking , 1987 .
      image of person or book cover 5600386416069843169.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 239[i.e.240] p.p.
      ISBN: 0670820652
    • New York (City), New York (State),
      c
      United States of America (USA),
      c
      Americas,
      :
      Penguin Books ,
      1988 .
      image of person or book cover 9151179180060347712.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 208p.p.
      ISBN: 9780140114034, 0140114033
      Series: A King Penguin series - publisher
    • Ringwood, Ringwood - Croydon - Kilsyth area, Melbourne - East, Melbourne, Victoria,: Penguin , 1989 .
      image of person or book cover 5120758484863315884.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Alternative title: It's Raining in Mango
      Extent: 239 [i.e. 240] p.p.
      ISBN: 0140121382
    • Camberwell, Camberwell - Kew area, Melbourne - Inner South, Melbourne, Victoria,: Penguin , 2010 .
      image of person or book cover 4697062915163650477.jpg
      Image courtesy of publisher's website.
      Extent: 239p.p.
      ISBN: 9780143204749, 0143204742
      Series: y separately published work icon Popular Penguins Penguin (publisher), Camberwell : Penguin , 2008- Z1605341 2008 series - publisher novel essay short story

Other Formats

  • Braille.
  • Sound recording.

Works about this Work

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;
Nation and Environment in the Twentieth Century Novel Tony Hughes-d'Aeth , 2023 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Cambridge History of the Australian Novel 2023;
Will the Real Subject Please Stand Up? Autobiographical Voices in Biography Karen Lamb , 2021 single work criticism
— Appears in: Life Writing , vol. 18 no. 1 2021; (p. 25-30) Essays in Life Writing 2021; (p. 24-29)

'Biographers exist in a tight partnership with their chosen subject and there is often during the research and writing an equivalent reflective personal journey for the biographer. This is generally obscured, buried among an overwhelming magnitude of sources while the biographer is simultaneously developing the all-important ‘relationship’ required to sustain the narrative journey ahead. Questions and selections beset the biographer, usually about access to, or veracity of, sources but perhaps there are more personal questions that could be put to the biographer. The many works on the craft of biography or collections about the life-writing journey tell only some of this tale. It is not often enough, however, that we acknowledge how biography can be unusually ‘double-voiced’ in communicating a strong sense of the teller in the tale: the biographer’s own life experience usually does lead them to the biography, but also influences the shaping of the work. These are still ‘tales of craft’ in one sense, but autobiographical reflections in another. Perhaps this very personal insight can only be attempted in the ‘afterlife’ of biography; the quiet moments and years that follow such consuming works. In this article, I reflect on this unusually emotional form of life writing.' (Publication abstract)

Shadows in Paradise : Australian Gothic Gina Wisker , 2020 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Routledge Companion to Australian Literature 2020; (p. 384-392)
'Australia is often seen as Gothic by its visitors, settlers and its indigenous people. Its landscapes and creatures are unsettlingly different and its myths of disruption, violence and beauty emerge from rivers, dystopian swamps and lakes, lurking in forests, deserted mines and whaling stations, plantations, claustrophobic homes and on deadly road trips. This chapter begins with a discussion of some foundational settler-invader texts by Marcus Clarke and Rosa Praed which evoke Australia’s dangerous grandeur and its mythic creatures, before turning to Thea Astley’s versions of brutal histories, isolated compulsions and loneliness, and Alexis Wright’s dystopian post-Anthropocene future in The Swan Book (2013).

Just as its sunshine coasts mask its contested haunted histories of invasion, theft and genocide, Australian Gothic is dark, duplicitous, uncanny and dangerous. Its most famous fictional serial killer (Mick Taylor of Wolf Creek [2005]) bears the same friendly, bluff, workmanlike name as its legendary Mick ‘Crocodile’ Dundee, and in contemporary horror tales its holiday beach towns are infiltrated by predatory transients. How Australia constructs and represents itself in literature and film is necessarily Gothic, replete with hidden, misrepresented and misunderstood histories and a consistent concern with guilt, identity, contradictions and confusions, producing a range of haunted lives, inherited and recent memories, and a hauntology of invaded or erased spaces and diverse pasts. In suggesting that ‘the Gothic itself is a narrative of trauma’ (Bruhm 268), Jessica Gildersleeve sees in the Australian Gothic ‘a sense of shame or guilt about the consequences of Australia’s colonial origins as well as the significance of its early mythologies, such as the Australian Legend’ (‘Contemporary Australian Trauma’). Contemporary Australian Gothic thus builds on and beyond trauma, becoming now ‘a site for political resistance and for social and cultural disruption’ (Gildersleeve, ‘Contemporary Australian Trauma’). In beginning to take a view of a longer history of Australian Gothic in literature and film, it is important to appreciate the mixed relationship of, on the one hand, the overwhelmingly Other landscape, climate, people and living things which the settlers invaded, and which they tried to incorporate, enculturate, relabel or destroy, and, on the other, the parallel lives and ancient histories of those displaced and represented as Other, and the importance of relationship to country, which lies at the heart of Aboriginal culture.'

Source: Abstract

[Review] It's Raining in Mango Shane McCauley , 1989 single work review
— Appears in: Fremantle Arts Review , October vol. 4 no. 10 1989; (p. 15)

— Review of Working Hot : A Novel Mary Fallon , 1989 single work novel ; It's Raining in Mango : Pictures from the Family Album Thea Astley , 1987 selected work short story
Philosophical Substance Judy Waterman , 1987 single work review
— Appears in: The CRNLE Reviews Journal , no. 2 1987-1988; (p. 19-20)

— Review of It's Raining in Mango : Pictures from the Family Album Thea Astley , 1987 selected work short story
The Best Book You've Never Read : It's Raining in Mango Michael McGirr , 2006 single work review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 4-5 March 2006; (p. 20)

— Review of It's Raining in Mango : Pictures from the Family Album Thea Astley , 1987 selected work short story
[Review] It's Raining in Mango Patrick Brady , 1987 single work review
— Appears in: Antipodes , November vol. 1 no. 2 1987; (p. 114)

— Review of It's Raining in Mango : Pictures from the Family Album Thea Astley , 1987 selected work short story
Compassion for a 'Family of Nutters' Katharine England , 1988 single work review
— Appears in: The Advertiser Magazine , 30 April 1988; (p. 10)

— Review of It's Raining in Mango : Pictures from the Family Album Thea Astley , 1987 selected work short story ; Limestone and Lemon Wine : Stories Thomas Shapcott , 1988 selected work short story
'Passing Ghosts' : Reading the Family Album in Thea Astley's It's Raining in Mango and Reaching Tin River Julie Mullaney , 2001 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australian Studies , Summer vol. 16 no. 1 2001; (p. 23-44)
Thea Astley : Exploring the Centre Paul Genoni , 2004 single work criticism
— Appears in: Subverting the Empire : Explorers and Exploration in Australian Fiction 2004; (p. 97-144)
y separately published work icon Unsettling Stories : Settler Postcolonialism and the Short Story Composite Victoria Kuttainen , Newcastle upon Tyne : Cambridge Scholars Press , 2010 Z1784101 2010 single work criticism 'The first study of the synergies between postcolonialism and the genre of the short story composite, Unsettling Stories considers how the form of the interconnected short story collection is well suited to expressing thematic aspects of postcolonial writing on settler terrain. Unique for its comparative considerations of American, Canadian, and Australian literature within the purview of postcolonial studies, this is also a considered study of the difficult place of the postcolonial settler subject within academic debates and literature. Close readings of work by Tim Winton, Margaret Laurence, William Faulkner, Stephen Leacock, Sherwood Anderson, Olga Masters, Scott R. Sanders, Thea Astley, Tim O'Brien and Sandra Birdsell are positioned alongside critical discussions of postcolonial theory to show how awkward affiliations of individuals to place, home, nation, culture, and history expressed in short story composites can be usefully positioned within the broader context of settler colonialism and its aftermath' (publisher website).
History : The Much Less than Final Frontier, and the Story of Thea Astley's Short Stories in It's Raining in Mango Victoria Kuttainen , 2010 single work criticism
— Appears in: Frontier Skirmishes : Literary and Cultural Debates in Australia after 1992 2010; (p. 153-168)
Thea Astley : This Great Unknown Richard Glover , 1989 single work criticism biography
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 18 November 1989; (p. 88)
Last amended 14 May 2020 08:15:34
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