Thea Astley: Inventing Her Own Weather (Karen Lamb, UQP)

Born in Brisbane in 1925, Thea Astley grew up in a family where her parents were not close. Karen Lamb describes how her strict Catholic upbringing and later work in remote locations as a teacher led Astley to see herself as ‘set apart’. She developed an engaging public personality as a prominent Australian author, yet kept her private life out of the public eye. Her books, however, were full of her experiences: ‘I work from life, as I know it, as I have known it.’ Lamb puts in context Astley’s beginnings as a writer in an era when women writers were not regarded as equal to their male counterparts. Even though she won the Miles Franklin Literary Award four times, Astley felt that she was a writer who was ‘out of favour’. Lamb has had considerable experience researching Australian literature. Inventing Her Own Weather is the first full literary biography of one of Australia’s best writers of the second half of the 20th century. It is an important resource for students of Australian literature and an insight into the life of an author whose own existence was such a profound influence and source of inspiration for her writing.

Chris Harrington is the co-owner of Books in Print in Melbourne