Provides a subtle picture of an Australian artist coming to terms with his place, not only in the world, but also in the austere but still imperial Britain of the 1930s and 40s. Billy Hayes is an acrobat who wants a big life, to cast his own shape, if only he could work out how to do it.
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Johnson's ( Flying Lessons ) second novel is an example of that unusual breed, a thoughtful epic, which meticulously maps its hero's interior landscape even as he spans decades and continents. The "big life" in question is desired by Australian-born Billy Hayes, whose genius for "tumbling" (acrobatics) leads him from his native Sydney to London in search of fame, fortune and the fair Bubbles Drake. This is an old-fashioned, baggy, picaresque, albeit comparatively muted story, in keeping with its mostly Depression-era and wartime backdrop. Despite the period settings, the narrative displays only a sketchy sense of place or the wider history of Billy's life and times, and focuses on his half-articulated yearnings and his obsession with his art. Billy is an unusual yet ultimately winning hero, whose long learning curve from boyhood fantasy to a chastened, unillusioned adulthood readers will follow with growing sympathy. Johnson writes in a fluid, colorful prose that frequently captures the flavor of a passing moment with something of Billy's own willful naivete. Ultimately, Billy's story gives the lie to the myth of the "big" life. Rather, it's in their recognition that the intensely felt moment can outpace grand ambition that these affectionately realized characters achieve their true grandeur.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Kirkus Reviews
The author of Flying Lessons (1991) offers a superficially old-fashioned story--about an Australian boy who ``would grow up to look into the eyes of a king''--made agreeably contemporary by modish conventions of style and intent. From the moment baby Billy Hayes, the youngest of Sapphire Hayes's children and the closest to her heart, ``knew the shock and joy of being alive in mid-air,'' the course of his future was determined. Born in Australia in the midst of WW I, Billy enjoys a blissful childhood until his father, wounded and embittered, returns from Europe. As Sapphire continues to make excuses for her husband's cruel treatment of the children (to ``acknowledge Jack Hayes as he truly was would mean admitting that she had chosen the wrong man''), Billy becomes the butt of his father's temper. Aware of his athletic potential, however, Billy also begins to set himself physical tests. A chance encounter with year-older Reginald Tsang, the son of a Chinese family of professional tumblers, soon focuses Billy's ambitions and talents. Like any good Victorian hero, Billy must endure a testing of character, and this he does- -triumphantly--as his father in the midst of the Depression sells him, Billy, now an accomplished gymnast, to a couple of traveling tumblers, who abruptly take Billy from his beloved mother and native Australia to England, where he becomes part of their increasingly popular act. At home only in the air, Billy becomes a star, performs in front of royalty, marries cold Bubbles, who divorces him soon after son Michael is born, then must change careers as variety shows are replaced by television. But just as Billy, reunited with a childhood love, is filled with a sense of being blessed with a ``talent that had brought him immeasurable joy,'' modernism intervenes: there will be no happy ending. Not, in the end, your average hero, or your average story, as Johnson movingly celebrates the resilience of the human spirit. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Author
I was born in Brisbane but moved to Sydney at the age of three months, which is where I spent my childhood. I grew up mostly around Sydney's North Shore (St.Ives) and moved to Queensland with my family (to a pineapple farm) where I finished my last years of high school. I attended Nambour High (the same year as the Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, but I don't remember him, and I am sure he does not remember me). My last two years were spent at Clayfield College.
I am the author of eight books: six novels; a memoir, A Better Woman; and a recent non-fiction book, an essay, On Beauty, published by Melbourne University Press. Several of my books have been published in the UK, the US, and in European translation (French, Polish) as well as in Australia. I am currently contracted to Allen and Unwin to deliver a seventh novel, My Hundred Lovers.
My novel The Broken Book (Allen and Unwin, 2004) was longlisted for the Miles Franklin and the International IMPAC Dublin Award, and shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize, the Queensland Premier's Prize for fiction, the Nita B Kibble Award, the Association for the Study of Australian Literature (ALS) Gold Medal Award and the CAL Waverley Library Award for Literature. Flying Lessons, (Heinemann, 1990; Faber UK, 1990; Faber US, 1990) was shortlisted for the Victorian Premier's Prize for fiction; A Big Life, (Picador, 1993; Faber UK, 1993; Faber US, 1993) was shortlisted for the Victorian Premier's Prize and the Banjo Award and my memoir, A Better Woman (Random House, 1999; Aurum Press, UK, 2000; Simon and Schuster, US, 2001) was shortlisted for the National Biography Award.
Several of my books have been released as recordings by the ABC and also as Louis Braille audio releases. My short stories have been broadcast on BBC Radio 4. I am a contributing editor of Agni literary magazine http://www.bu.edu/agni/staff.html published at Boston University and supported by the graduate Creative Writing Program.
I have more or less been a full-time writer of fiction since 1985, when I received the first of three New Writers' grants from the Literature Board of the Australia Council which allowed me to write full time. Before that I was a full-time journalist (starting at the Brisbane Courier-Mail and going on to work for such diverse publications as The Australian Women's Weekly, The Sun-Herald, The Sydney Morning Herald and The National Times).
The same year I was awarded my first grant I co-edited and contributed to a collection of Queensland short stories called Latitudes: New Writing From The North (UQP, 1986). In 1989 I was awarded the Keesing Fellowship at the Cite Internationale des Arts in Paris. I have been a participant at most of Australia's writers' festivals and have a wide experience of readings, guest lectures and teaching work in universities in Australia, as well as in England, Hong Kong and the United States, including guest lectures at New York University, Amherst College, Boston University and Emerson College, Boston.
Throughout my years as a writer of fiction I have continued to publish journalism and essays on mainly literary matters for newspapers and magazines including The Guardian, The Times, The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian and Q Magazine of The Courier-Mail). In 1999 I returned to full-time journalism for a period of two and a half years as editor of an 18-page arts and culture section of The Age, Melbourne.
My literary papers have been purchased for collection by the State Library of New South Wales, an ongoing acquisition program. My website http://www.abetterwoman.net/ has been archived as part of the National Library of Australia's Pandora Project as a site considered by the library to be 'of significance and to have long-term research value'. I have lived in London with my family (my sons Caspar and Elliot and my partner) since 2001.
I am the author of eight books: six novels; a memoir, A Better Woman; and a recent non-fiction book, an essay, On Beauty, published by Melbourne University Press. Several of my books have been published in the UK, the US, and in European translation (French, Polish) as well as in Australia. I am currently contracted to Allen and Unwin to deliver a seventh novel, My Hundred Lovers.
My novel The Broken Book (Allen and Unwin, 2004) was longlisted for the Miles Franklin and the International IMPAC Dublin Award, and shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize, the Queensland Premier's Prize for fiction, the Nita B Kibble Award, the Association for the Study of Australian Literature (ALS) Gold Medal Award and the CAL Waverley Library Award for Literature. Flying Lessons, (Heinemann, 1990; Faber UK, 1990; Faber US, 1990) was shortlisted for the Victorian Premier's Prize for fiction; A Big Life, (Picador, 1993; Faber UK, 1993; Faber US, 1993) was shortlisted for the Victorian Premier's Prize and the Banjo Award and my memoir, A Better Woman (Random House, 1999; Aurum Press, UK, 2000; Simon and Schuster, US, 2001) was shortlisted for the National Biography Award.
Several of my books have been released as recordings by the ABC and also as Louis Braille audio releases. My short stories have been broadcast on BBC Radio 4. I am a contributing editor of Agni literary magazine http://www.bu.edu/agni/staff.html published at Boston University and supported by the graduate Creative Writing Program.
I have more or less been a full-time writer of fiction since 1985, when I received the first of three New Writers' grants from the Literature Board of the Australia Council which allowed me to write full time. Before that I was a full-time journalist (starting at the Brisbane Courier-Mail and going on to work for such diverse publications as The Australian Women's Weekly, The Sun-Herald, The Sydney Morning Herald and The National Times).
The same year I was awarded my first grant I co-edited and contributed to a collection of Queensland short stories called Latitudes: New Writing From The North (UQP, 1986). In 1989 I was awarded the Keesing Fellowship at the Cite Internationale des Arts in Paris. I have been a participant at most of Australia's writers' festivals and have a wide experience of readings, guest lectures and teaching work in universities in Australia, as well as in England, Hong Kong and the United States, including guest lectures at New York University, Amherst College, Boston University and Emerson College, Boston.
Throughout my years as a writer of fiction I have continued to publish journalism and essays on mainly literary matters for newspapers and magazines including The Guardian, The Times, The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian and Q Magazine of The Courier-Mail). In 1999 I returned to full-time journalism for a period of two and a half years as editor of an 18-page arts and culture section of The Age, Melbourne.
My literary papers have been purchased for collection by the State Library of New South Wales, an ongoing acquisition program. My website http://www.abetterwoman.net/ has been archived as part of the National Library of Australia's Pandora Project as a site considered by the library to be 'of significance and to have long-term research value'. I have lived in London with my family (my sons Caspar and Elliot and my partner) since 2001.
Customer Reviews
|
There are no customer reviews yet.
|
|||
|
Video reviews
|
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items. |
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
