Just Relations Rodney Hall 1982

Dustjacket synopsis:
"The residents of Whitney's Fall are aged between 80 and 114. In this remote Australian mining town they are a bastion against the empty promise of progress. In fact they are the guardians of the land's unfulfilled dream, a mountain of gold awaiting the gentle kiss of gelignite..."

Quotes:
"Just Relations is of the school of Patrick White with a bow to Bellow, Marquez, Pynchon, old Uncle James Joyce and all...Hall is a protean writer, varying between the crude, the comic, the lusty and the poetic" - Andrew Sinclair, The Times London
"Out of foibles and squabbles, dreams and nightmares, Hall fashions a hilarious, yet moving study "- Washington Post
"It is poetic, peculiar, extravagant...harrowing and comic" - Los Angeles Times
"The most exciting book I have read in a long time...its lusty, vigorous prose, full of the joy of words, takes it looping and humming along, and makes exhilarating demands on the reader" - Marion Halligan, Canberra Times

First Paragraph

And to think they once had a Chinese joss-house right on this plot my child, she said, standing in her shop expecting customers.

Only for a year or two, the shop objected.

My goodness you are a grumpy wreck of a thing, she laughed. Considering you're younger than I am.

Miserable, miserable, whispered the shop.

From the Penguin paperback edition, 1984.

This page and its contents are copyright © 1997-2001 by Perry Middlemiss, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.

Last modified: May 2, 2001.