With her husband gone and her memory failing, Kathleen faces old age alone, until her children's callousness and self-absorption force her to take dramatic steps to retain her beloved freedom. By the author of The Slow Natives.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Prize-winning Australian writer Astley (The Slow Natives) has written another chronicle in which domestic lives are lived at uncomprehending cross-purposes and disappointing offspring exact petty revenge. But while this new novel bears her trademark wit, it is more sour and downbeat than most of her previous work. Here Astley suggests that the aged have no place in an increasingly fragmented society. Widowed and elderly, Kathleen is starting to lose her bearings. Alienated from her grown children and isolated from all meaningful human contact, she roams the town mall, recalling the past: her dismal marriage and unfulfilling existence. Meanwhile, her son Brain (formerly Brian) indulges in one money-losing scheme after another, and her mean, selfish daughter, Shamrock, sells Kathleen's house and possessions and consigns her mother to a home. Astley paints a bleak portrait of contemporary Australia, a land of malls, automobiles and disrupted families. Even lovers seem never quite to connect, and a number of Astley's characters resort to grand and finally meaningless gestures to reaffirm their existence-at least to themselves. With every major character paralyzed in some way, this is a difficult novel to love; in addition, the flashbacks and shifts from Kathleen's viewpoint to her son's are sometimes confusing. Still, sparks of humor provide balance, humanizing a fictional landscape that otherwise promises little hope or compassion.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Acclaimed Australian writer Astley (The Slow Natives, LJ 9/1/93) turns her characteristically elegant prose to an examination of the predicaments of aging, as personified by Kathleen, an elderly widow facing loss within herself and without. Taking tea in a mall, appearing to others as mildly eccentric, perhaps a shade dottier than many forgetful oldsters, she ruminates as best she can on her limited choices for shaping what future is left. Kathleen's grown children regard their mother more as a problem than a person, which makes it easier for them to sell her house and furnishings behind her back, euthanize her dog, and arrange a new "home" for her at Passing Downs, a planned retirement "community" Kathleen despises. Even as memory and reason slip beyond her control, she determines to find at least one more day of freedom. Kathleen's wanderings combine hilarity and heartbreak to form an affecting, provocative short narrative. Recommended for most fiction collections.
Starr E. Smith, Fairfax Cty. P.L., Va.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Starr E. Smith, Fairfax Cty. P.L., Va.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Kaleidoscopic View of Aging,
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This review is from: Coda (Hardcover)
The title "Coda", the elderly man racing in a wheelchair on the cover, and the newspaper articles preceding each section of the tryptich describing grannie and grandpa dumping, i.e. leaving confused elderly in public places, hoping someone will find them and care for them is how the book grabbed this reader's attention and it did not let up until the very end. Even then, the reader is dazed from the depth, complexity, and family relationships covered within 188 pages of the book. The subject is highly relevant. It is written with sensitivity, creativity, frequent humor, deep seriousness and wit.Thea Astley describes the ordinairy life of the charming elderly lady Kathleen Hackendorf from the first person viewpoint. She is an Australian lady who raised two children, a son and daughter, who are successful in their respective fields and who married and had children of their own. Kathleen has an elderly good friend Daisy with whom she shares intimacies and has get-togethers for coffee and cake but who dies suddenly and unexpectedly. Kathleen is gradually becoming senile ... and forgetful. Her children have tried letting her live with them alternately but this option is fraught with problems. They are forced to make serious decisions on her behalf for her well being. Modern life is revealed in twisted complexity. This novel has wonderful imagery, ironic humor, and biting reality. It is highly worth reading and pondering. Erika Borsos (erikab93)
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