Passenger (Keneally novel)
| Author | Thomas Keneally |
|---|---|
| Country | Australia |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Fiction |
| Publisher | Collins, Australia |
Publication date | 1979 |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 186 pp |
| ISBN | 0002216299 |
| Preceded by | A Victim of the Aurora |
| Followed by | Confederates |
Passenger (1979) is a novel by Australian writer Thomas Keneally.[1]
Abstract
The narrator of this novel is a foetus in utero, who watches the outside world through his mother's eyes. He observes the break-up of his parents' marriage, his mother's incarceration in a mental hospital, and her eventual escape and travel to Australia, where he is born.
Dedication
"To Trish Sheppard and Iain Findlay."
Critical reception
In the Canberra Times Hope Hewitt was a little annoyed with the main character: "In practice it provides a novel excuse for the oldest of narrative conventions: the omniscient narrator. It also provides for a variation on the Romantic notion of the wise child; and I confess that there were moments when the little man became so polysyllabically philosophical or his creator so cutely whimsical that I found myself wishing the brat would remain unborn...But apart from a few irritations with the conventions of the fantasy, Passenger is an entertaining book, with its constant changes of scene and its unexpected uses of language."[2]
Publication history
After its original publication in 1979 by Collins,[3] the novel was published as follows:
- Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, USA, 1978[1]
- Fontana, UK, 1980[4]
See also
References
- ^ a b "Austlit - Passenger by Thomas Keneally". Austlit. Retrieved 8 July 2023.
- ^ ""Vision from the womb"". The Canberra Times, 2 June 1979, p16. Retrieved 8 July 2023.
- ^ "Passenger (Collins 1979)". National Library of Australia. Retrieved 8 July 2023.
- ^ "Passenger (Fontana)". National Library of Australia. Retrieved 6 July 2023.