y separately published work icon The Teetotaller's Wake single work   novel  
Is part of Fish Lips Trilogy Carolyn Van Langenberg , 2001- series - author novel
Issue Details: First known date: 2003... 2003 The Teetotaller's Wake
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

Fiona Hindmarsh, a successful middle-aged economist, likes to live her life her way. Beginning the love-of-her-life affair with the gorgeous Laine Macready, a girl who wears a Hardie Aimes shirt like no one else can, she is interrupted by a phone call. Her sister, Gillian, brings her the news that their mother, Muriel, had a heart attack at the top of a plum tree she was pruning and died. Irritably Fi sets off on a night-time drive home to help Gillian organise the funeral.

What precisely is home for Fi? Where her mother lived in Northern New South Wales, among the tea-drinking relatives who, as Gillian reminds her, made Fi what she is today? Is home the girl of the moment who happens to make her heart miss a beat? Or is home merely one of the houses Fi has bought in Australia or leased in Bali? Fi is contrary, her head and her heart responding to different music. And as a child, Fi was sensitive to the ghostly spirits of the Bundjalung who inhabited the land the Hindmarshes and the Darks took over for dairy farms. How does she reconcile the mutterings and wailings and chantings she hears in her heart with the classic cinema sound booming in her head and the skin-smarting indignity of betrayal?

A novel combining a love story with a perspective on the farmers' settlement history of the Far North Coast of New South Wales, that grew with new grass on old rainforest soil. (Publisher blurb)

Notes

  • Book 2 of the Fish Lips Trilogy.
  • Very brief review appears in The Bulletin, 12 August 2003, p.75.
  • Dedication: For my granmothers, Edith Lane and Annie Kirkland.
  • Epigraph: Fry me a sardine, the wind is blowing and I'll be off. Deborah Levy - An Amorous Discourse in the Suburbs of Hell.

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • Briar Hill, Watsonia - Greensborough - Plenty area, Melbourne - Northeast, Melbourne, Victoria,: Indra Publishing , 2003 .
      Extent: 229p.
      ISBN: 0957873581 (pbk.)

Works about this Work

Carolyn van Langenberg : Creativity from Stark Realism Raghid Nahhas , 2003 single work criticism
— Appears in: Kalimat : An International Periodical of English and Arabic Creative Writing , June no. 14 (Arabic) 2003; (p. 45-58)
Travelling Borderlands Shé Mackenzie Hawke , 2003 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Women's Book Review , vol. 15 no. 2 2003;

— Review of The Teetotaller's Wake Carolyn Van Langenberg , 2003 single work novel
Fiction Julie Marlow , 2003 single work review
— Appears in: Island , Summer no. 95 2003; (p. 80-84)

— Review of Seven Types of Ambiguity Elliot Perlman , 2003 single work novel ; Anthology of Australasian Stories 2003 anthology short story ; The Teetotaller's Wake Carolyn Van Langenberg , 2003 single work novel
Fish Lips and The Teetotaller's Wake. (Book Review) David Hayden , 2003 single work review
— Appears in: Southerly , vol. 63 no. 2 2003; (p. 202-204)

— Review of Fish Lips Carolyn Van Langenberg , 2001 single work novel ; The Teetotaller's Wake Carolyn Van Langenberg , 2003 single work novel
Tampa Proof? Australian Fiction 2002-2003 Paul Genoni , 2003 single work criticism
— Appears in: Westerly , November vol. 48 no. 2003; (p. 159-174)
In Short : Fiction Debra Adelaide , 2003 single work review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 31 May-1 June 2003; (p. 19)

— Review of The Teetotaller's Wake Carolyn Van Langenberg , 2003 single work novel ; Terminator Gene Ian Irvine , 2003 single work novel ; Notes from the Esplanade Igor Gelbach , 2003 single work novel
Paperbacks Veronica Sen , 2003 single work review
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 8 June 2003; (p. 18)

— Review of The Teetotaller's Wake Carolyn Van Langenberg , 2003 single work novel ; Under the Green Moon Maree Giles , 2002 single work novel
Fish Lips and The Teetotaller's Wake. (Book Review) David Hayden , 2003 single work review
— Appears in: Southerly , vol. 63 no. 2 2003; (p. 202-204)

— Review of Fish Lips Carolyn Van Langenberg , 2001 single work novel ; The Teetotaller's Wake Carolyn Van Langenberg , 2003 single work novel
Fiction Julie Marlow , 2003 single work review
— Appears in: Island , Summer no. 95 2003; (p. 80-84)

— Review of Seven Types of Ambiguity Elliot Perlman , 2003 single work novel ; Anthology of Australasian Stories 2003 anthology short story ; The Teetotaller's Wake Carolyn Van Langenberg , 2003 single work novel
Travelling Borderlands Shé Mackenzie Hawke , 2003 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Women's Book Review , vol. 15 no. 2 2003;

— Review of The Teetotaller's Wake Carolyn Van Langenberg , 2003 single work novel
Tampa Proof? Australian Fiction 2002-2003 Paul Genoni , 2003 single work criticism
— Appears in: Westerly , November vol. 48 no. 2003; (p. 159-174)
Carolyn van Langenberg : Creativity from Stark Realism Raghid Nahhas , 2003 single work criticism
— Appears in: Kalimat : An International Periodical of English and Arabic Creative Writing , June no. 14 (Arabic) 2003; (p. 45-58)
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