Girish Mahajan (Editor)

The Slow Natives

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Country
  
Australia

Publication date
  
1965

Originally published
  
1965

Page count
  
210

Publisher
  
Angus & Robertson

3.3/5
Goodreads

Language
  
English

Pages
  
210

Author
  
Thea Astley

Genre
  
Novel

Preceded by
  
The Well Dressed Explorer

The Slow Natives t3gstaticcomimagesqtbnANd9GcSRHnMLughCV32H

Media type
  
Print (Hardback & Paperback)

Followed by
  
A Boat Load of Home Folk

Similar
  
Thea Astley books, Australia books, Novels

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

Contents

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".

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'."

References

The Slow Natives Wikipedia