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Library | Call Number | Status |
|---|---|---|
Searching... Stayton Public Library | WINTON | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Lyons Public Library | F WIN | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Salem Main Library | Winton, T. | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Author Notes
Tim Winton was born in 1960 in Western Australia. He attended a Creative Writing Course at Curtin University in Perth, and it was there that he began his first novel, An Open Swimmer. It was entered for The Australian/Vogel Award in 1981 and won. His other works include Shallows, which won the Miles Franklin Award in 1984; The Riders Winton, which won the Miles Franklin Award in 1992; and Island Home: A Landscape Memoir, the winner of the 2016 Australian Book Industry Awards, General nonfiction book of the year. The Boy Behind the Curtain, published in 2016, won the 2018 Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature, Nonfiction. His books also include The Shepherd's Hut, Breath, and Dirt Music.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
``Luck don't change, love,'' observes Sam Pickles to his daughter Rose. ``It moves.'' Considerations of fate and love underlie Winton's ( Shallows ) wry novel, set in Western Australia, about two families thrown together in the years following WW II. Sam Pickles earns a modest living mining guano for nitrate until he loses his hand in an accident. Fortunately, the family inherits a rambling old house--the Cloudstreet of the title--in which they can live, although they still lack cash. The dilemma is resolved with the sudden arrival of the rigid, God-fearing Lamb family, whom the rather libertine Pickles take in as boarders. Following the quirky, deeply etched members of these families--``flamin whackos,'' in Quick Lamb's description--as they forge bonds and undergo travails, Winton explores the haphazard nature of human existence with a quietly focused ferocity. Featuring lyrical passages and rapid-fire, minimally punctuated dialogue, this satiric, affectionate family saga is tragic and hilarious--and often both at once. Winton shows himself a worthy successor to his countryman Martin Boyd, who portrayed the Anglo-Australian society of previous generations. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
This marvelous postmodern novel of family life by bestselling Australian writer Winton (Minimum of Two, That Eye, the Sky, etc.) celebrates all the great traditional values in writing that is emphatically contemporary. As Fish Lamb, whose nature and tragedy shape the story, prepares to return to the river he has yearned for ever since he was saved from drowning as a small boy, two families, the Lambs and the Pickleses, picnicking on the riverbank, are celebrating a momentous decision in their joint lives. The two families--who are working-class and scarred by past failures, and who for 20 years have shared the enormous old house that the Pickleses inherited on Cloud Street--have overcome daunting spiritual, moral, and physical adversities to reach this point. The Pickles family--Sam, who has lost the fingers of one hand in an accident; Dolly, who was abused as a child by her sisters; and their three children--have been adversely affected by Sam's belief in luck (``the shifty shadow of God''). The Lambs, whose religious faith was lost when Fish, after being saved from drowning, turned out to be retarded, are hard- working mystics determined to survive. The house itself, as much a metaphor as a setting, is haunted--and is the least credible part of the novel--by malevolent ghosts and by an Aborigine angel who appears serendipitously. The families fight, suffer, teeter on the edge of disaster, but love--young Rosa Pickles and Quick Lamb marry--and the will to endure bring them through. Fish, always sensitive to the dangers surrounding them over the years, is finally able to return to the river where he can savor the families' ``healing all the rest of his journey.'' One of those rare novels that warm the heart, as well as spark the imagination.
Booklist Review
Australian novelist Winton has written a strange and affecting novel about two families who share a decaying mansion of sorts at Number One Cloud Street in Perth, Australia. The brooding, notoriously unlucky Pickles family inherits the house but can ill afford to live in it. Trying to dodge the "shifty shadow of God," otherwise known as bad luck, father Sam comes up with a plan. He shoves his family into one-half of the house and rents the other half to the Lambs, who, though equally hapless, are full of pride and industry. Winton does wonders with this rather alarming group of down-and-outers on the make. His characters seem unformed yet quiveringly alive to every weird vibration the world puts out, ripe to bursting with all manner of mismatched properties and features. They seem to have risen--blinking and confused but willing and able--from some primordial, uniquely Australian ooze, where anything is possible and nothing is predictable. Winton consistently comes up with the perfect oddball moment and the ideal perspective. His novel fairly hums with the weird, mute currents that flow through and inform all humanity. ~--Frances Woods
Library Journal Review
This six-episode Australian miniseries was adapted from Tim Winton's critically acclaimed 1991 novel spanning a period of 20 years, from 1943 to 1963, in the lives of two disparate families who share a house at One Cloud Street in Perth, Western Australia. The Pickles, who own the house, get through life relying on luck while the Lambs are industrious and succeed through hard work. Each family has suffered through tragedies, while the house, with its many mysteries, is almost itself a character. Pivotal to the action is Fish Lamb. As a young boy, he drowned in a fishing accident and was brought back to life. While on the surface he appears to have suffered disabling brain damage, his mystical experiences and connection to water are at the heart of the story and involve a number of surrealistic scenes. The sense of family connection and values and the celebration of life despite numerous hardships are powerful themes. Bonus features include behind-the-scenes features, cast interviews, and a discussion of the music and film production. VERDICT The acting, across the board, in some uniquely difficult roles, is very good. Containing mature themes, this multilevel and complex story will reward the careful viewer and is highly recommended for adult audiences.-Tom -Budlong, Atlanta (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.