y separately published work icon Mandala Trilogy series - author   novel  
Issue Details: First known date: 1995... 1995 Mandala Trilogy
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Includes

1
y separately published work icon The White Garden Carmel Bird , St Lucia : University of Queensland Press , 1995 Z565978 1995 single work novel (taught in 1 units)

'Seven people die in deep sleep therapy. A woman dies from a bee-sting on the grounds of a psychiatric clinic where inmates are encouraged to live out their delusions. A doctor rapes his patients in the Sleeping Beauty Ward.
Carmel Bird's examination of the secrets of the human mind is a chronicle of tragedy that is inadvertently revealed in the search for a lost library book. It is also a compelling portrait of a doctor whose lust for power is a form of madness.'

Source: Goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39249.The_White_Garden
2
y separately published work icon Red Shoes Carmel Bird , Milsons Point : Random House , 1998 Z85199 1998 single work novel

'Petra Penfold-Knight, accustomed to her own way from birth, grows up to lead a religious cult whose devotees wear red shoes. The cult attracts members through Petra's magnetism, as well as by more sinister means, such as stealing baby girls from their mothers. An angel is assigned as guardian to Petra, and must continually examine his own moral position as he hovers beside the woman and observes child-stealing, violence, rape and murder committed in the name of religion. Contains descriptions of sex, coarse language, strong violence, child abuse and drug use.

Source: Trove https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/7390982
3
y separately published work icon Cape Grimm Carmel Bird , Pymble : Flamingo , 2004 Z1095404 2004 single work novel (taught in 1 units)

'One clear evening in 1992 all the inhabitants enter the church hall, where they are locked in and burned alive. They have been persuaded to do this by a young man called Caleb Mean - also known as El Nino, the Christ Child. The only survivors of the fire are Caleb, his lover Virginia, and their baby daughter Golden. How could such a thing happen? And why? Do the answers lie in the tragedy of the Aborigines herded over the cliffs at Cape Grimm by white settlers? Are they in the history of Skye itself, founded by the unlikely survivors of a 19th-century shipwreck? Or do they lie within the mysteries of the human soul?' 

Source: ABE Books https://bit.ly/3gtVDeN

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

First known date: 1995
      1995-2004 .
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Works about this Work

10 ‘Lost’ Australian Literary Treasures You Should Read – and Can Soon Borrow from Any Library Rebecca Giblin , Airlie Lawson , 2020 single work column
— Appears in: The Conversation , 24 November 2020;
The Cultic Milieu in Australia : Deviant Religiosity in the Novels of Carmel Bird Carole Cusack , 2016 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Free Mind : Essays and Poems in Honour of Barry Spurr 2016; 'Carmel Bird’s (b. 1940) Mandala Trilogy comprises three studies of what the English sociologist Colin Campbell termed the “cultic milieu”.2 For Bird, this is a subculture of alternative (or “deviant”) religiosity, in which the vulnerable are caught up in the snares and delusions of charismatic leaders. The White Garden (1995) introduces the amoral psychiatrist, Dr Ambrose Goddard, who medically and sexually abuses patients at Mandala Psychiatric Clinic, a virtual prison over which he (as his name suggests) is “God”.3 In Red Shoes (1998) Petra Penfold-Knight is the leader of the Hill House Brethren, a “cult” that kidnaps patients from Mandala and steals the babies of unmarried mothers, and in which members are dressed identically and wear red shoes. Cape Grimm (2004) is the tale of Caleb Mean who, raised from infancy to understand himself as the second coming of Christ, incinerates his community of one hundred and forty-seven religious followers (most of whom are his relatives) in remote north-west Tasmania on his thirty-third birthday. The novels tease out connections between psychiatry and what are popularly termed “cults”, and psychiatrists and the charismatic leaders of deviant religious groups. This chapter examines the Mandala Trilogy using social scientific models from the study of new religious movements (NRMs), including American sociologists of religion Rodney Stark and William Simms Bainbridge’s three classic models of “cult formation” (psychopathology, entrepreneurship, and subcultural evolution) to illuminate the portrayal of charismatic leaders, Stanley Cohen’s notion of “moral panic” to interpret Bird’s identification of fringe religion with criminal behaviour, drug-taking, sexual deviance, and irrational beliefs, and Campbell’s “cultic milieu”, mentioned above, to clarify the teachings of the charismatic leaders, and the existence of a group in society that is primed to follow such leaders, and to join such movements.' (Introduction)
Re-imagining the Gothic in Contemporary Australia : Carmel Bird Discusses Her Mandala Trilogy Naomi Britten (interviewer), 2010 single work interview
— Appears in: Antipodes , June vol. 24 no. 1 2010; (p. 98-103)
Re-imagining the Gothic in Contemporary Australia : Carmel Bird Discusses Her Mandala Trilogy Naomi Britten (interviewer), 2010 single work interview
— Appears in: Antipodes , June vol. 24 no. 1 2010; (p. 98-103)
The Cultic Milieu in Australia : Deviant Religiosity in the Novels of Carmel Bird Carole Cusack , 2016 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Free Mind : Essays and Poems in Honour of Barry Spurr 2016; 'Carmel Bird’s (b. 1940) Mandala Trilogy comprises three studies of what the English sociologist Colin Campbell termed the “cultic milieu”.2 For Bird, this is a subculture of alternative (or “deviant”) religiosity, in which the vulnerable are caught up in the snares and delusions of charismatic leaders. The White Garden (1995) introduces the amoral psychiatrist, Dr Ambrose Goddard, who medically and sexually abuses patients at Mandala Psychiatric Clinic, a virtual prison over which he (as his name suggests) is “God”.3 In Red Shoes (1998) Petra Penfold-Knight is the leader of the Hill House Brethren, a “cult” that kidnaps patients from Mandala and steals the babies of unmarried mothers, and in which members are dressed identically and wear red shoes. Cape Grimm (2004) is the tale of Caleb Mean who, raised from infancy to understand himself as the second coming of Christ, incinerates his community of one hundred and forty-seven religious followers (most of whom are his relatives) in remote north-west Tasmania on his thirty-third birthday. The novels tease out connections between psychiatry and what are popularly termed “cults”, and psychiatrists and the charismatic leaders of deviant religious groups. This chapter examines the Mandala Trilogy using social scientific models from the study of new religious movements (NRMs), including American sociologists of religion Rodney Stark and William Simms Bainbridge’s three classic models of “cult formation” (psychopathology, entrepreneurship, and subcultural evolution) to illuminate the portrayal of charismatic leaders, Stanley Cohen’s notion of “moral panic” to interpret Bird’s identification of fringe religion with criminal behaviour, drug-taking, sexual deviance, and irrational beliefs, and Campbell’s “cultic milieu”, mentioned above, to clarify the teachings of the charismatic leaders, and the existence of a group in society that is primed to follow such leaders, and to join such movements.' (Introduction)
10 ‘Lost’ Australian Literary Treasures You Should Read – and Can Soon Borrow from Any Library Rebecca Giblin , Airlie Lawson , 2020 single work column
— Appears in: The Conversation , 24 November 2020;
VIEW ALL WORKS ABOUT (3)
Last amended 5 Sep 2022 13:39:42
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