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y separately published work icon Reunion single work   novel  
Issue Details: First known date: 2009... 2009 Reunion
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'Old friendships are expected to maintain their shape despite distance, lovers, careers, new friends. But twenty years is a long time.

'Ava is an internationally acclaimed novelist who carries with her a lifetime of secrets. Helen, a brilliant and dedicated molecular biologist, is faced with unexpected moral dilemmas as she finds herself drawn into bioterrorism research. Conrad is a philosopher with a popular media profile and a desire for a much younger woman. And Jack, whose career has stalled in the light of his long unrequited love for Ava, is a scholar of the history and culture of Islam.

'It is Ava's husband, Harry, a man for whom the others can barely conceal their disdain, who has drawn them back to Melbourne where they first met at university. As they deal with the reality of their present lives and their memories of the past, none will be unchanged by the reunion. And not everyone will survive.' (Publisher's blurb)

Notes

  • Dedication: To Jenny, Roger, and Dan
  • Epigraph: The good want power

    The powerful goodness want: worse need for them.

    The wise want love, and those that love want wisdom;

    And all the best things are thus confused to ill.

    Shelly, Prometheus Unbound

    All my life I have loved in vain

    the things I didn't learn

    Yehuda Amichai, Open Closed Open

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • Pymble, Turramurra - Pymble - St Ives area, Sydney Northern Suburbs, Sydney, New South Wales,: Fourth Estate , 2009 .
      image of person or book cover 3348165640782923413.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 432p.
      Note/s:
      • Published: May 2009

      ISBN: 9780732287832 (pbk.)

Works about this Work

On Memorising Poetry Tessa Wooldridge , 2015 single work column
— Appears in: Thoughts from an Idle Hour 2015-;

In her 2015 Ray Mathew Lecture, novelist and essayist Andrea Goldsmith refers to W. H. Auden’s poem, ‘Musée des Beaux Arts’. The poem entered Goldsmith’s consciousness ‘in the very early days of the novel that would become, Reunion’ and she decided, ‘for reasons unrelated to the nascent work’, to memorise Auden’s poem. Once she had memorised it, she ‘would lie awake at night, silently reciting it over and over, thereby thwarting other more disturbing and anarchic thoughts’.

It was not until long after Goldsmith had finished Reunion that she became aware of the way Auden’s poem had ‘fed into’ her novel—the main characters of her narrative, a quartet of friends, had each turned away ‘quite leisurely’ from the various disasters of their lives.

This column reflects on Goldsmith's experience and the now, largely out-of-fashion, practice of memorising poetry.

(Note: the quotes above are from Goldsmith's lecture. The lecture, 'Private Passions, Public Exposure', is available on the website of the National Library of Australia.)

Sometimes it Takes a Writer Marion Rankine , 2010 single work criticism
— Appears in: Overland , Spring no. 200 2010; (p. 36-40)
Marion Rankine considers originality and place in Australian writing.
[Review] Reunion Jo Case , 2009 single work review
— Appears in: The Monthly , June no. 46 2009; (p. 72)

— Review of Reunion Andrea Goldsmith , 2009 single work novel
Poised for Writers Festival Lexi Landsman , Dalia Sable , 2009 single work review column
— Appears in: The Australian Jewish News , 15 May vol. 75 no. 32 2009; (p. 28)

— Review of Reunion Andrea Goldsmith , 2009 single work novel ; Headlong : A Novel Susan Varga , 2009 single work novel
Fiction Books Amanda Horswill , 2009 single work review
— Appears in: The Courier-Mail , 16 - 17 May 2009; (p. 20)

— Review of Reunion Andrea Goldsmith , 2009 single work novel
Ageing, Familiar Faces in the Old, Familiar Places Jennifer Levasseur , 2009 single work review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 2-3 May 2009; (p. 13)

— Review of Reunion Andrea Goldsmith , 2009 single work novel
Reflections of Intensity and Passion Diane Stubbings , 2009 single work review
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 2 May 2009; (p. 12)

— Review of Reunion Andrea Goldsmith , 2009 single work novel
Well Read Katharine England , 2009 single work review
— Appears in: The Advertiser , 2 May 2009; (p. 24)

— Review of Reunion Andrea Goldsmith , 2009 single work novel ; Headlong : A Novel Susan Varga , 2009 single work novel
What's Happening Now? Judith Armstrong , 2009 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , May no. 311 2009; (p. 9)

— Review of Reunion Andrea Goldsmith , 2009 single work novel
To the Heart of the Matter Carmel Bird , 2009 single work review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 9-10 May 2009; (p. 30)

— Review of Reunion Andrea Goldsmith , 2009 single work novel
The Storyteller Angela Bennie , 2009 single work column
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 18-19 April 2009; (p. 10-11)
Memory Train Jason Steger , 2009 single work column
— Appears in: The Age , 25 April 2009; (p. 22-23) The Sydney Morning Herald , 23-24 May 2009; (p. 26-27)
Sometimes it Takes a Writer Marion Rankine , 2010 single work criticism
— Appears in: Overland , Spring no. 200 2010; (p. 36-40)
Marion Rankine considers originality and place in Australian writing.
On Memorising Poetry Tessa Wooldridge , 2015 single work column
— Appears in: Thoughts from an Idle Hour 2015-;

In her 2015 Ray Mathew Lecture, novelist and essayist Andrea Goldsmith refers to W. H. Auden’s poem, ‘Musée des Beaux Arts’. The poem entered Goldsmith’s consciousness ‘in the very early days of the novel that would become, Reunion’ and she decided, ‘for reasons unrelated to the nascent work’, to memorise Auden’s poem. Once she had memorised it, she ‘would lie awake at night, silently reciting it over and over, thereby thwarting other more disturbing and anarchic thoughts’.

It was not until long after Goldsmith had finished Reunion that she became aware of the way Auden’s poem had ‘fed into’ her novel—the main characters of her narrative, a quartet of friends, had each turned away ‘quite leisurely’ from the various disasters of their lives.

This column reflects on Goldsmith's experience and the now, largely out-of-fashion, practice of memorising poetry.

(Note: the quotes above are from Goldsmith's lecture. The lecture, 'Private Passions, Public Exposure', is available on the website of the National Library of Australia.)

Last amended 3 Oct 2018 13:46:38
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