The Slow Natives

The Slow Natives
First edition
Author Thea Astley
Country Australia
Language English
Publisher Angus and Robertson
Publication date
 1965
Media type Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages 210
Preceded by The Well Dressed Explorer
Followed by A Boat Load of Home Folk

The Slow Natives (1965) is a Miles Franklin Award-winning novel[1] by Australian author Thea Astley, the second of her record number of four wins. It also won the 1965 Moomba Award.

Plot summary

Set in sub-tropical Queensland, the novel examines the relationships between suburban Brisbanites including a priest, nuns and a couple and their teenage son.

Style and themes

The novel represents a departure for Astley from her earlier novels in that rather than focusing on one or two particular characters, she moves "freely among a group, switching attention omnisciently from one to another. Almost all the characters suffer from some form of spiritual aridity; in Astley's vision, there often seems nothing between repression, and empty or even corrupt sexuality".[2]

Astley's characters in this novel often only realise their failings after disaster has beset them. The father, for example, only realises after his teenage son has lost his leg in a "joy-riding accident", that he has "failed to give his son 'the sort of discipline ... [he] wanted more than anything in the world'."[3]

Notes

  1. ↑ "Miles Franklin 1965 : Award to Slow Natives", The Canberra Times, 22 April 1966, p22
  2. ↑ Clancy, Laurie Thea Astley Biography: Thea Astley comments
  3. ↑ Taylor and Perkins (2007), p. 246

References

Awards and achievements
Preceded by
My Brother Jack		 Miles Franklin Award recipient
1965		 Succeeded by
Trap


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