 | Reviews of Affection by Ian Townsend. |
This novel has been shortlisted for the 2005 Victorian Premier's Literary Awards, The Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction.
Brisbane's "Courier-Mail" ran a profile of the author around the time of the book's publication at the end of April this year, which is a pretty good way to start for any novelist.
"Townsend's debut novel about the north Queensland plague at the start of the 20th century, is an accomplished work from the experienced ABC radio journalist...For a historical novel about such a grim topic, Affection has a surprisingly light touch. It manages to educate and elicit emotional responses without brow-beating them with the horror and terror of living in a town overshadowed by the Black Death."
In "The Weekend Australian" Ross Fitzgerald was very definitely impressed with the novel, which he feels "is a must-read book for 2005. As a powerful mix of truth and invention, it is a literary tour de force." Which doesn't beat about the bush. In the novel "Ian Townsend has done something quite remarkable in his first novel: drawing on government reports, newspaper and magazine articles, photographs, telegrams, personal papers and oral and written histories, he has fleshed out into fiction a hitherto unknown and fascinating story of colonial Queensland on the cusp of a new century and of Australian nationhood."
