• Seal First Novel Award, Canada, 1982, for The Ivory Swing
• Named in Canada’s Best Ten Younger Writers, 1986
• Fiction Award, Fellowship of Australian Writers, 1988, for Dislocations
• Finalist for the Miles Franklin Award and the National Book Council award, 1989, for Charades
• Finalist for Canada’s Trillium Award, 1990, for Isobars
• Patrick White Award 2003
The Last Magician
• Listed in Weekend Australian’s Best of the Year
• Finalist for Miles Franklin Award
• Finalist for Trillium Award, Canada
• Listed in Publishers’ Weekly Best 50 Books of 1992 and Best 16 Novels of 1992
• Listed in New York Times’ Most Notable Books of 1992
Oyster
• New York Times’ Editors’ Choice and Notable Books List
• Finalist for Australia’s Miles Franklin and National Book Awards
• Finalist for the Trillium Award
Due Preparations for the Plague
• Winner of the Queensland Premier’s Literary Award for Best Fiction Book, 2003
• Winner of Sisters in Crime Davitt Award for best crime novel, 2004
• Listed in ‘Best Books of the Year’ by Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, Toronto Globe & Mail, Montreal Gazette, London Times, San Francisco Chronicle and London Times
About the book
The critical eye
‘A TOUR DE FORCE’, raved London’s Observer about Oyster. ‘Her use of language is fascinating and extraordinarily powerful and her narrative shimmers and shifts like the displaced reality in the heat of Outer Maroo itself . . . Turner Hospital is one of the best female novelists currently writing in English.’ British novelist Patrick Gale described Turner Hospital as writing ‘with mischievous energy, an outback Angela Carter with dirt under her nails and a loaded gun hiding in her Bible, daring us to imagine what she will not quite spell out, deftly sliding the narrative focus away from the obvious.’
‘Where every desire is a consuming fire, what redemption is there?’ asked writer Paul Carter in his review, adding ‘Oyster is a millennial fable forged in the fire of sexual disillusionment . . . Brilliant in many senses.’ Australian critic and journalist Philippa Hawker felt that ‘Oyster shimmers with mystery, absence and enigma, and is rich with sensual detail . . . A compelling novel of threat, tension and revelation’, while Philippa Gregory, in the UK’s Independent, described the book as ‘Haunting and powerful . . . The sense of distance, of miles of outback and unchartered land is powerfully evoked.’
‘This is an astonishing and brilliant book. A more compelling modern novel is hard to think of and for any reader of fiction, poetry, history and even – or especially – of newspapers, Oyster is a must buy, must read, must contemplate,’ said The Scotsman, continuing ‘one of the marks of Turner Hospital’s writing is the opalescent splendour of the atmosphere she creates and the absolute bone-hardness of her language; it is like seeing accurate acid etchings of things that can’t be felt or even seen . . . On no account miss out on this book.’‘Blending dream sequences, Alice in Wonderland imagery and biblical illusions, counterpointed with more precise passages devoted to opal, oysters and pearl, it is a lyrical and sophisticated way of storytelling. Much of the power and originality of the novel stems from the mesmerising, disconcerting quality of the writing and Janette Turner Hospital’s ability to recreate a unique pictorial sense of place. That the results are so readable, as well as timely, is a testament to her talent’, wrote Dominic Bradbury in the Times.
Melbourne’s Sunday Age wrote that ‘Janette Turner Hospital has a rare sense of her own work, pacing herself so every achievement is full, mature and glowing’, while Tasmania’s Hobart Mercury found ‘a long and intricate work, [that] reeks with suspense and worry, full of the turbid atmosphere of the red, sapless, heat-blistered outback where it is set, and very, very scary . . . A stunning novel.’ In the Adelaide Advertiser, Katherine England wrote that ‘few Australian writers throw out such a challenge as Janette Turner Hospital; few repay acceptance with such tangible and topical rewards.’ The Melbourne Times, too, felt that ‘the passion which informs Hospital’s writing is political in the best sense, defying labels or categorisations, but constantly in search of the authentic in a world of moral ugliness . . . the result is a book hard to put down which teases and lingers in the mind long after it has been closed.’
‘This book vibrates with energy . . . Turner Hospital has distilled the vastness, the scorched earth and silences, into powerful, sensual prose . . . A novel of great force ’
Literary Review
Behind the scenes
JANETTE TURNER HOSPITAL grew up on the Queensland coast, but until she travelled on the Queensland Writers’ Train in 1990, ‘I’d never been to the real, capital-O Outback before. Like most Australians, I was mesmerised,’ she says. ‘I was entranced by some atavistic feeling of primal space with which we identify.’ Then, she says, ‘I went on a camping trip from Adelaide to Coober Pedy. That was my first encounter with opal, which I found absolutely fascinating. And then I began making more trips to outback Queensland because I wanted to find out what the Queensland opal towns were like.’ Soon, she knew she was going to write a book about the place. ‘Patrick White wrote Voss without going into the outback. I certainly couldn’t do that,’ she says. ‘I spent a lot of time sitting in outback pubs talking to people, listening to how they talked, what they talked about . . . The hospitality is amazing. We’d meet people in pubs and then, half an hour later, they’d ask us to stay on their properties. The warmth was fantastic . . . Of course, so is the racism, the conservatism, and the anti-federal government stuff. People have this weird sense that the Government is out to get them and they have to arm themselves.
‘I was on one of those trips when the word about Waco, Texas, began coming in – and it hit me forcibly that this kind of thing could happen in a little outback town. The cult figures tend to head for somewhat isolated places where they can wall off their communes from the rest of the world. And they also tend to head for places that are psychologically receptive, where there is an anti-government isolationist kind of mentality . . . like the Bible-belt of Texas. All the same things apply in outback Queensland and I thought, “Wow, this could happen here” and that was how the idea of the novel was born.’
Hospital has said that all her novels begin with the collision of an image and an urgent question. The image was Outback Queensland. The question was What gives cult-messiah figures like David Koresh of Waco, Texas, or Jim Jones of Guyana their charismatic power and their astonishing hold over the lives of so many people?
She did considerable research on the lives of David Koresh, Jim Jones, and the Canadian cult-messiah figure, Roch Theriault, who performed surgeries on his followers without anaesthetic. ‘These leaders are part buffoon, yet they are sinister and have enormous powers of seduction over others. In the beginning, my hunch was that they started out idealistically as leaders of the oppressed, but then became corrupted, got drunk on their own power. But the more I read, the more I thought that was not the case, that they were not very interesting or complex, and were in fact psychopaths from the start. And psychopaths, although they are profoundly disturbing, are not interesting in a moral sense, because there is nothing there.’ In the end, she decided that the people who were most interesting to her were the relatives of the acolytes. ‘That’s where the real torment lay, with the parents who have lost children to a cult or who arrange to have their own children kidnapped and de-programmed.’
‘we are so steeped in Outback imagery – from painting, from Drysdale and Namatjira, and in literature – so even before we see it, it’s ours’
The inspiration
LURE OF THE OPAL
* * *
IN QUILPIE, 980 kilometres west of Brisbane, St Finbarr’s church on Buln Buln Street has an altar built of opal. In Coober
Pedy, which lies a 846 kilometre drive north of Adelaide, the townspeople live, shop and worship underground. Almost ninety-five per cent of the world’s opals come from Australia’s remote, dry outback deserts, and the gem even forms part of a dreamtime creation story. One version has the creator coming down to Earth on a rainbow, in order to bring the message of peace to all the humans. And where his foot touched the ground, the stones became alive and started sparkling in all the colours of the rainbow – the opals.
In 1849, the first European to find opal in Australia came across it accidentally on a cattle station outside Adelaide, but the gem wasn’t seen at the world’s largest and most productive opal field at Coober Pedy until 1915, when 14-year-old Willie Hutchinson stumbled over fragments of surface opal while looking for gold with his father. This began a massive ‘opal rush’ of thousands of men, especially as the First World War diggers came home. The extremes of temperature were so great – over 50 degrees Celsius in summer, but freezing at night in the winter – and wood so rare in this arid region, that the miners soon began digging their homes into the ground, to take advantage of the natural ‘air-conditioning’ this produced. Even the town post office, shop and pub are famously underground. The name Coober Pedy comes from the local language’s ‘okupa piti’, literally ‘white man’s burrow’. Now this area produces some 70 per cent of the world’s opal, and over 45 different nationalities work the opal.
‘Almost ninety-five per cent of the world’s opals come from Australia’s remote, dry outback deserts’
Nobody really knows the value of the opal industry to the Australian economy – government estimates are widely regarded as speculative at best. Apart from the few large commercial operations, there is a strong cash – or ‘black’ – economy at work. Miners that deal in opal are notoriously secretive about their leases and the quality and quantity of stones it might produce. Others choose opal mining as a ‘lifestyle profession’ – they’re not interested in marketing their stones, nor in declaring income to authorities such as the tax department.
In 1994 Australia adopted the opal as its national gemstone, which goes some way to indicating the reverence Australians hold for the gem. The ancient Romans believed that the opal symbolised hope and innocence, while the early Greeks believed that it gave the wearer the gift of prophecy and foresight. Properties attributed to the opal over time include astral projection, psychic ability, the ability to ward off disease, and to bring money, luck and power. They’re linked to invisibility, the power to recall past lives, are reputedly able to help focus the mind for those who wish to develop more of their mental capacities and are said to possess excellent money drawing power. Indeed, one owner of a Sydney opal shop in the 1940s and 50s, Harry Brukarz, won numerous lottery prizes, including a major £60,000 prize, and attributed his lottery winnings to the ‘luck of the opal’.
‘In 1994 Australia adopted the opal as its national gemstone’
Read on
Have you read?
The Ivory Swing
(first published 1982, reissued 2003 by University of Queensland Press (UQP), paperback, ISBN 0702234036)
When Juliet moves from small town Canada to Southern India she is divided between family loyalty and her need for self-expression. Through the young widow Yashoda, Juliet discovers that defying the ancient mores can lead to tragedy . . .
‘a novel of unusual delicacy and power. A disturbing meditation on the clash of cultures and the rebellion and feminine rage in each.’ – Washington Post
‘A truly magnificent literary achievement.’ – Booklist
The Tiger in the Tiger Pit
(first published 1983, reissued 2003 by UQP, paperback, ISBN 0702234028)
A mother works to reunite her children with their ailing tyrannical father and with each other. Her son is a psychiatrist, one daughter is tragically schizophrenic, the other a free-spirited concert violinist whose young son may yet redeem them all.
Borderline
(first published 1985, reissued 2003 by UQP, paperback, ISBN 0702234001)
A meat truck carrying illegal immigrants is intercepted at the Canadian–American border but an unconscious woman is inadvertently left inside the truck. After two strangers impulsively smuggle her across the border, their lives are changed irrevocably.
‘Topical and timeless. Hospital’s allusive prose examines the concept of sanctuary from the political and the psychological point of view simultaneously, yet never ignores the thriller format.’ – Library Journal
Dislocations: Stories
(1986, UQP, ISBN 0702221023)
Intimate stories capturing the turning points in the character’s lives, characters who share an intimate knowledge of dislocation: from their culture, from their native countries, from themselves.
‘The 17 stories here aren’t little gifts; they’re cross-cultural treasures. Rarely have I been so captivated by a collection of short fiction.’ – Milwaukee Journal
Charades
(first published 1988, reissued 2003 by UQP, paperback, ISBN 0702233889)
A mysterious and elusive love affair haunts the lives of three women in Australia. Twenty years later, Charade Ryan sorts through story and counter-story for her father, the legendary Nicholas, and the truth about her origins.
‘Janette Turner Hospital goes from strength to literary strength. I loved it!’ – Fay Weldon
‘everything the most hard-to-please reader of novels could wish for’ – Mary Lord, Overland
‘Charades is an accomplished novel – written with wit and high-spirited intelligence.’ – Peter Pierce, Sydney Morning Herald
Isobars: Stories
(1990, Virago Press, ISBN 1853815098) Isobars are ‘imaginary lines connecting places of equal pressure on a map’ – inspired by the title story, this collection features landscapes of thought and memory in which discrete times and discrete places become inseparably joined.
‘ A writer of many gifts; her dark imagination, astute insights into societal interactions and the supple beauty of her prose, provide an irresistible combination . . .’
Publishers Weekly
The Last Magician
(first published 1992, reissued 2003 by UQP, ISBN 070223401X)
Cat, Charlie, Robbie and Catherine once shared a childhood summer in a Queensland rainforest. But a death intruded on their charmed circle, binding them to complicity and silence. Decades later the past continues to fester.
‘Evocative settings, characters we care deeply about, and language that is entrancingly lyrical . . . Her prose crackles with energy and imaginative excitement.’ – New York Times Book Review
‘Hospital . . . is a masterly stylist, accomplishing intellectual complexity and mimetic sensuality with dazzling ease. [Her writing] is pungent with anger, telling, with bitterly precise insights of experienced suffering, what it is like to be alive today . . .’ – Melbourne Sunday Herald
Collected Stories
(first published 1995, reissued 2001 by UQP, paperback, ISBN 0702232408)
The internationally acclaimed stories from Dislocations and Isobars with seven previously uncollected stories.
North of Nowhere, South of Loss: Collected Stories
(2003, UQP, paperback, ISBN 0702233331) A revealing collection of 14 short stories, combining seven stories published in book form for the first time, with seven stories from the ‘North of Nowhere’ section of Collected Stories (UQP, 1995).
‘Turner Hospital has a rich, allusive style and a gift for intensity which etches the geography of her characters’ inner lives as sharply as it does the cities, towns and climates in which they live.’ – Sandra Hall, Bulletin
Due Preparations for the Plague
(2003, HarperCollins, ISBN 0732277310)
Lowell tries not to think about the past and the hijacking that killed his mother. Samantha, on the other hand, cannot let go. As a child, she survived the hijacking of Air France Flight 64, and as an adult she obsessively digs for answers, seekin
g a man called Salamander whom she believes holds key information. But when does the quest for truth become a dangerous obsession? And what difference can the truth make?
‘Taut and well paced . . . a political espionage novel with existential underpinnings’ – the Sydney Morning Herald
‘… harrowing and intense, but ultimately redemptive.’ – Richard Rhodes, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb
‘A cracking thriller about world terrorism and espionage that just happens to be nightmarishly topical in its concerns and fears…’ – The Age
‘Hospital’s sophisticated psychological thriller offers a thought-provoking glimpse of the socio-political intricacies of the individuals and organizations that track terrorism, as well as of the enduring personal struggles of those left behind after an attack’ – Publishers Weekly
‘ One of the most powerful and innovative writers in the English language today ’
Times Literary Supplement
‘An accomplished fusion of doomsday thriller and mordant morality play.’ – Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
‘Thrilling, maddening, deeply moral, Due Preparations for the Plague is a near flawless novel, and one so timely it is breathtaking.’ – The Globe & Mail
‘an intricately plotted novel about identity, the quest for truth and the fear of death…an exceptional novel…It deserves to be read, and heeded.’ – Asian Review of Books
‘the book sustains a highly charged atmosphere of paranoia, which for the characters become a kind of passion, an often heartbreaking way to apply meaning to chaos…Yet what’s most chilling in this bracing, visceral thriller is the way Hospital continually locates, in inhuman events, the unyieldingly human experience.’ – San Francisco Chronicle
Find out more
ON THE NET
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http://surfsc.com/scbooks/janetteturnerhospital
The University of South Carolina’s Janette
Turner Hospital page.
Oyster Page 38