Author: Robyn Lee Burrows
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty Ltd, 2001
A man returns home to his wife & family in the small NSW coastal fishing village of Tea-tree Passage from WW1 carrying more scars on the inside than out. The first part of the novel details the gradual and inevitable downslide of the man’s marriage, through the post-war boom years of the 1920s, then the Depression years of the ’30s. His wife and children return to Tea-tree Passage while he becomes a vagrant. Each child deals with their own scarred upbringing against the backdrop of another looming world war. The characters find both turmoil and solace in their relationships & life events but Tea-tree Passage remains a tranquil sanctuary for the magnetic yet authentically flawed characters in this story.
Where did you grow up? Were you a city or a country kid?
Click here for extract on author's website
Author: Thomas Keneally
Read by: Paul English and Heather Bolton
Publisher: Melbourne, Vic.: Bolinda Publishing Pty, Limited, 2013
(CD Audio)
Thomas Keneally is a master story-teller who weaves richly character-driven tales. Set in war-time country Australia and inspired by the notorious Cowra break-out in 1944 the story interweaves the lives and attitudes of those living in and around a fictitious POW internment camp. An insightful examination of the impact of the war on those who are far removed from the fighting occurs in a diverse array of characters from prisoners and their keepers to local farmers & communities wrestling with their adherence to the Geneva Convention.
What did you hear or know about the Cowra break-out? What impact did the war have on your family?
Author: Toni Jordan
Publisher: Melbourne, Vic. The Text Publishing Company, 2012.
(Ebook online resource)
This story was birthed out of an archival image of a woman being hoisted up to a train window to kiss a departing soldier and is grounded in 1939 pre-war Melbourne but spans more than 60 years. An unusual feature of the story is that each chapter is written in the first person from nine different members of an extended family group skipping back & forth across this expanse of time. The story examines the innocent choices that shape each person and the way they are expressed in those around us.
