A new Thea Astley novel is always a significant literary event, and discerning readers will not be disappointed with what promises to be her best effort yet - An Item from The Late News.
Wafer is a Bomb Age Baby. Legend has it he was born to an Australian father and a Swedish mother in Europe just before World War II, and as a young child saw his father blown apart by a bomb during the London Blitz. His own shell-shocked youth has been an aimless drifting through boarding schools, odd jobs, and hippie trails all over the world. Finally, he lands exhausted in Allbut, a small and decaying mining town somewhere in Queensland. Haunted by the modern-day myth of nuclear holocaust, Wafer seeks the perfect bomb shelter. And what better place to build your shelter than Allbut, Australia?
Allbut, however, considers itself a clean and decent town, and it is soon clear that Wafer does not belong there. He is kind to Aborigines, helpful to travelling strangers, and - Worst of all - he doesn't drink. A valuable gem stone, found by Wafer in the middle of nowhere on his way to Allbut, is misunderstood by the impoverished townspeople as evidence of a secret strike . . . and what is the town to make of Wafer's friendship with thirteen-year-old Emmeline, a strange and beautiful enfant terrible? As Christmas approaches, tensions and temperatures soar, unleashing the town's hostility towards Wafer, driving on to the story's brutal climax.
Thea Astley's chilling story of a misfit's clash with parochial values is set against a fabulous array of myths - classical, modern, intriguing compounds of the two - giving the novel unusual resonance and power.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Elegantly written tale of mounting horror.,
By
This review is from: An Item from the Late News (Hardcover)
Ten years before the novel begins, a man named Wafer "had the wax on his wings melted from flying too close," not to the sun, but to "the local grandees." Gabby Jerrold, the artist-narrator, who was present at the time that the "wax melted," has now returned to Allbut, an Australian wilderness town, "a mere speck on the world's glassy eye" to recollect the past and her own responsibility, if any, in the events surrounding Wafer's last Christmas in Albut, a town with a "barbaric Christmas tradition." Here "beer-gut belchings" rule, and "schooner glasses discover the Christmas crib and soothe the infant with whack yoicks." Astley packs all the above information into the first two hundred words on the opening page, instantly establishing a tension-filled mood, which grows as the narrator remembers Wafer, her feelings for him, and the heat, isolation, and constant threat of violence in Allbut. Wafer is a "blow-in," seeking, ironically, a place of peace, a place where he can live away from the pressures of society, surrounded not by people but by the bigness of nature. Somewhere in the hills on the way to Allbut, however, he has discovered a gigantic sapphire, which he has kept, not because it has any monetary value to him but because it is beautiful. This stone becomes his curse. With her compact, understated style and the ability to choose exactly the right word, Astley recreates the dismal everyday life of Allbut, and the pathetic characters who populate it--several violent psychotics, undernourished and abused black aborigines, a sadistic cop, a power-mad councillor, Gabby's own uncommunicative, cold family, and the people with whom Wafer shares his "farm." All see the gem as their ticket out of Allbut. With echoes of Faulkner's Intruder in the Dust, Thomas Tryon's Harvest Home, and Katharine Anne Porter's "The Lottery," the novel edges its way to the inevitable, violent conclusion. Though the story is presented simply, it reverberates with reminders of classical mythology and religion, as Wafer (whose own name has religious connotations) reflects the tension between dreams and reality, the spiritual and profane, and the role of the individual within the community of man. The narrator faces crises of conscience as she considers her own responsibilities, her own dreams, and the sins of omission for which she seeks repentance. Powerful in subject and style, the novel carries a one-two punch the reader will not soon forget. Mary Whipple
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Compulsary reading,
By A Customer
This review is from: An Item from the Late News (Hardcover)
I read this as part of an Advanced English course in high school. At first it was difficult going but then it bloomed as I adjusted to the amazing prose. Astley writes so you can feel the blinding light, dust and heat of the outback...I last read it 10 years ago but the images that it provokes live on. It is a true indication of life in the outback- the landscape, the fear of the outsider and racism. Each character rings true...the teenager trapped in the town and her intense curiousity about the hippie that lives outside if town. An amazing book. Astley is a respected Aust writer who deserves to be appreciated by a wider audience...
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