Immagine dell'autore.

Lucy Treloar

Autore di Salt Creek

5+ opere 205 membri 11 recensioni

Sull'Autore

Lucy Treloar was born in Malaysia. She was educated in England, Sweden and Melbourne and is a graduate of the University of Melbourne and RMIT. She is an editor. Her work focuses on English language translations of a diverse range of materials. She writes short fiction. Her story Wrecking Ball was mostra altro published in Best Australian Stories 2013. Her non-fiction has been published in a range of print media. Her first novel is Salt Creek. Her awards and recognitions include the 2011 Asialink Writer's Residency to Cambodia; the 2012 Writing Australia Unpublished Manuscript Award and a 2013 Varuna Publisher Fellowship for The Things We Tell Ourselves, and she was the winner of the 2014 Commonwealth Short Story Prize (Pacific) for The Dog and the Sea. The 2016 Indie Book Awards for Best Debut Fiction, and the 2016 Australian Book Industry Awards Matt Richell award for new writers went to Salt Creek. The 2016 Dobbie Literary award, for a first-time published female author, was also awarded to her for the novel Salt Creek. (Bowker Author Biography) mostra meno

Comprende il nome: Lucy Treloar

Opere di Lucy Treloar

Salt Creek (2015) 138 copie
Wolfe Island (2019) 59 copie
Not nits (2003) 1 copia

Opere correlate

The Best Australian Stories 2013 (2013) — Collaboratore — 12 copie

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Recensioni

Part beautiful, part harrowing. Some passages, especially descriptions of locations and nature, are truly poetic—full of metaphors and similes as fresh as morning dew (unlike that one). In contrast, and skilfully balancing, are gritty descriptions of a dystopian near-future America in which society is fractured, morality has become whatever-it-takes and nature itself seems party to the havoc.

The plot is well structured, dropping surprises that sometimes take a hundred pages to clarify in nice epiphanies for the reader. Really well handled, although momentarily confusing.

Now I want to read ‘Salt Creek‘.
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PhilipJHunt | 1 altra recensione | Dec 26, 2020 |
Wolfe Bay, set in the indeterminate near future, is a bleak book: it foreshadows the annihilation of home due to the rising oceans. However what it also shows is that catastrophe can bring out both the best and worst in people, often to their own surprise.

In a departure from the Australian setting of the award-winning Salt Creek (see my review) the central character of this novel lives in America. Kitty Hawke lives alone on high ground on (fictional*) Wolfe Island in Chesapeake Bay in Maryland, where she creates art from the debris of summer houses lost to the sea. She is estranged from her husband and daughter on the mainland, and her son has died in circumstances not revealed until late in the book. She is not self-sufficient because the rising salt affects her attempts to grow vegetables, so she travels occasionally to the mainland to buy supplies and to sell her art to her agent. But other than that she has very little contact with other people and she likes it that way.

Over at the Global Literature in Libraries Initiative, clodge2013 has been posting all month about older women in literature. It's hard to know how much traction this initiative has had, but the reasons for it are obvious: the depiction of older women tends to be stereotypical even amongst contemporary authors. But that's not a trap Lucy Treloar has fallen into...

It's not quite clear how old Kitty is because both her daughter and granddaughter were/are very young mothers. But Kitty has acquired the patina of the older woman through her lifestyle. She lives independently on an island that everyone else has abandoned, and to the people on the mainland, she seems eccentric. Her husband is baffled by her defection: he does not understand her creative impulse. She lives for her art; she is wholly absorbed by it. She thinks about creating her 'makings' as she takes her walks over what's left of the island, and she 'disappears' for days on end when creating.

With weather-beaten skin and hair, Kitty dresses as she pleases, for comfort and practicality, with no thought of fashion or pleasing others. While warmth is crucial to survival in the hostile weather, food and cooking is not important to her, not unless it becomes a source of comfort to others, and she has had to compromise anyway because some foods are no longer available. She has had her share of threats from men who'd thought she was vulnerable and learned otherwise, and she's experienced their cowardly forms of revenge that take place when she isn't there. Her armour is her mature acceptance of things she cannot change. The past is there, and there is much to regret and be blamed for, but it cannot be changed.

Because she lives alone, she has become a little set in her ways. But she is strong and capable, and she's a quick thinker. Crucially, she can adapt to changing circumstances, and as the plot progresses she reveals latent skills (including some that shock) and a capacity for strategy. What surprises her, because she has done without love and family for so long, is her own resurgent love for the people that matter to her.

The catalyst for change is the unexpected arrival of three adolescents and a child.

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2019/08/30/wolfe-island-by-lucy-treloar/
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anzlitlovers | 1 altra recensione | Aug 29, 2019 |
A very well-written compelling story about a family trying to make a living in Australia in the 1860s. The Finch family has little luck with various farming ventures. The story is narrated by Hester, the eldest daughter who is 15 at the beginning of the novel. Through her eyes, we see her mother's struggle with depression and pregnancy, and her father's zealous belief in the bible, and in bringing enlightenment to the Aboriginals -- largely by virtually adopting Tully, a young black boy. The novel explores themes of colonization, racial equality, family values and the role of women. It is the kind of story that will stay with me, and one that has me contemplating issues and perspectives days after I've read it.… (altro)
 
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LynnB | 7 altre recensioni | Sep 28, 2018 |
This was a wonderfully written and evocative book and goes a long way to capturing the human condition through its narrative and characterisations. Set in 1855, the Finch family leave the comforts of their city life and “good society” after falling on hard times and set off to the remote and beautiful Salt Creek.

Told through the eyes of Hester Finch, the eldest daughter and fifteen when the story starts, we see the family flung into an inhospitable coastal wildness inhabited by the Ngarrindjeri people. Her father Stanton Finch hopes for a change in his family’s fortunes by becoming a grazier.

The clash of cultures in this appears at first so supple when an Aboriginal boy, Tully, becomes a friend and part of the family. But as we slowly see the destruction not only of the Ngarrindjeri people’s land and the people themselves, we also see what might also be the destruction of the Finch’s family unit as each member deals with Stanton Finch’s unmovable belief that civilisation is best for the natives and in turn progress will return his family fortunes.

Watching her father trying to make right all that is wrong in the world, including his own fundamental flaws and her family and the Aboriginals flounder under his choices, causes Hester to question all she understands about her family, the Aboriginals, and herself.

This has a deceptive and slow build up to a very powerful story about love, loss and hope set during harsh times in a harsh society, told with both empathy and insight, which made it impossible for me to put down after I had read a few pages.
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Segnalato
Sharon.Robards | 7 altre recensioni | Jan 18, 2018 |

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Opere
5
Opere correlate
1
Utenti
205
Popolarità
#107,802
Voto
4.1
Recensioni
11
ISBN
34

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