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Australian Gospel: A Family Saga Kindle Edition
by Lech Blaine (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 101
From one of Australia's most brilliant writers, a dark comedy about the tangled fates of two couples and the children trapped between them
Michael and Mary Shelley are Christian fanatics who loathe their fellow Australians – especially their 'reckless indulgence of alcohol and obsession with idiotic ball sports'.
Lenore and Tom Blaine are working-class Queensland publicans raising a large family in a raucous, loving, sports-obsessed home.
There's just one problem. Lenore and Tom are foster parents to three of Michael and Mary's children, who were removed from the Shelleys as infants. And the Shelleys are prepared to do anything to get them back. Anything.
Australian Gospel is the true story of Lech Blaine's family, a stranger-than-fiction tale that is heartbreaking, hilarious and altogether astonishing.
‘Wild applause. Brave, funny and true.’ —David Marr
‘This is the new benchmark for the quintessential Australian epic. I lost count of how many times I laughed and cried.’ —Grace Tame
‘A rollicking, insightful and moving account of the everyday heavens and hells we make for ourselves, and each other.’ —Sarah Krasnostein
‘What makes a real family? Whose rights should triumph in battles over a child? Which inheritances can we escape, and which will haunt us forever? All this is explored in an irreverently joyful family saga you'll never forget.’ —Charlotte Wood
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Print length
385 pages
Language
English
From the Publisher
Product description
About the Author
Lech Blaine is the author of the memoir Car Crash and the Quarterly Essays Top Blokes and Bad Cop. He is the 2023 Charles Perkins Centre writer in residence. His writing has appeared in Good Weekend, Griffith Review, The Guardian and The Monthly. His forthcoming book is Australian Gospel.
Product details
ASIN : B0D4TJSWLT
Publisher : Black Inc. (5 November 2024)
Language : English
File size : 3837 KB
Text-to-Speech : Enabled
Screen Reader : Supported
Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
X-Ray : Enabled
Word Wise : Enabled
Print length : 385 pagesBest Sellers Rank: 1,019 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)6 in Memoirs (Kindle Store)
40 in Memoirs (Books)
122 in Humour & Entertainment (Books)Customer Reviews:
4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 101
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Snapdragon
4.0 out of 5 stars Astonishing storyReviewed in Australia on 17 December 2024
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It’s a lot, this book. The contrast between the crazy, accusatory Christians whose kids were raised by Lech’s parents is a classic tale of opposites. The behaviour of Michael and Mary Shelley is astonishing to us ordinary folks - egregiously awful - and it left powerful scars which would have been bigger if Lenore and Tom Blaine hadn’t been such salt of the earth people. Lech writes in an abbreviated style that I really liked. I think he probably had the feeling that just baldly stating what happened without trimmings is actually enough. We get it (though I was a little confused for a bit near the front end). He talks about all the research he did and thinking over all that’s presented here, you can see that it was massive and would have taken a heck of a lot to trim into readable shape. Sailing swiftly through this remarkable tale of Australian life is a bit like watching an excellent TV series. One thing you ponder is chains of causation. Daughter Hannah thinks about this and why she ducked several bullets. Religious mania, mental health and addiction feature heavily. 4.75 stars.
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