by Karen Lamb
13ibid.
14Thea Astley, letter addressed ‘To the Editor’, Angus & Robertson Publishers, 30 January 1957, A&R Archives.
15Beatrice Davis in Anthony Barker, One of the First and One of the Finest: Beatrice Davis, Book Editor, Society of Editors (Vic.), Carlton, 1991, p. 45.
16 Beatrice Davis, letter to Thea Astley, 4 May 1957, A&R Archives.
17Beatrice Davis in Jacqueline Kent, A Certain Style: Beatrice Davis, A Literary Life, Viking/Penguin, Melbourne, 2001, p. 10.
18Bob Sessions to author, Melbourne, 13 March 2008.
19Thea Astley, Beatrice Davis tribute volume, 1974, Beatrice Davis papers, State Library of New South Wales.
20Kent, A Certain Style, p. 10.
21ibid.
22Patrick White in David Marr (ed.), Patrick White: Letters, Random House, Sydney, 1994, p. 171.
23Beatrice Davis, letter to Thea Astley, 4 May 1957, A&R Archives.
24Beatrice Davis, publishing memo, A&R Archives.
25Thea Astley, letter to Beatrice Davis, 9 July 1957, A&R Archives.
26Thea Astley in Robert Drewe, ‘Profile of a Prize Novelist’, The Age, 28 May 1966, p. 22.
27Betty Judd to author, Coffs Harbour, 25 November 2006.
28ibid.
29Thea Astley, letter to Beatrice Davis, 8 June 1958, A&R Archives.
30Thea Astley to author, Cambewarra, 28 May 1995.
31ibid.
32Thea Astley, letter to Beatrice Davis, 17 March 1957, A&R Archives.
33Beatrice Davis, letter to Thea Astley, 21 March 1957, A&R Archives.
34Caroline Jones, The Search for Meaning with Caroline Jones, ABC radio, 17 April 1994 (repeated 8 January 1995), 64732, ABC Radio Archives.
35Thea Astley, Spoken Word with Peter Couchman, ABC radio, 24 February 1994, 57078, ABC Radio Archives.
36Thea Astley, notebook, Thea Astley papers.
37Michael McGirr to author, Melbourne, 14 March 2008.
38Beatrice Davis, letter to Thea Astley, 26 May 1958, A&R Archives.
39Thea Astley, letter to Beatrice Davis, 21 June 1958, A&R Archives.
40Beatrice Davis, letter to Thea Astley, 25 June 1958, A&R Archives.
41Richard Walsh to author, Sydney, 29 May 1995.
42Beatrice Davis, letter to Thea Astley, 10 September 1958, A&R Archives.
43Douglas Stewart, letter to Thea Astley, 28 August 1958, Thea Astley papers.
44Thea Astley, letter to Martin Haley, 1958, Martin Haley papers, UQFL48, Fryer Library, University of Queensland.
45ibid.
46Thea Astley, letter to Martin Haley, 9 August 1958, Martin Haley papers.
47Thea Astley, letter to Martin Haley, 1958, Martin Haley papers.
48Barbara Abouchar to author, Sydney, 7 February 2008.
49ibid.
50ibid.
51Bob Sessions to author, Melbourne, 13 March 2008.
52Hal Porter, letter to Thea Astley, 19 November 1958, Thea Astley papers.
53Barbara Abouchar to author, Sydney, 7 February 2008.
54ibid.
55Michael McGirr to author, Melbourne, 14 March 2008.
56Cecil and Eileen Astley, letter to Thea Astley, c. 1960, Thea Astley papers.
57ibid.
58ibid.
8 An armed neutrality
1Thea Astley, The Slow Natives, Penguin, Melbourne, 1990, p. 40.
2Advertisement, The Sydney Morning Herald, 16 July 1957.
3Bryan and Jennifer Bruty to author, Mittagong, January 2007.
4Yvonne Wyndham to author, Sydney, 8 January 2007.
5Thea Astley in Ray Willbanks (ed.), Australian Voices: Australian Writers and Their Work, University of Texas Press, Texas, 1991, p. 35.
6Yvonne Wyndham to author, Sydney, 8 January 2007.
7Thea Astley, letter to Beatrice Davis, c. 1958–59, Angus & Robertson Archives, MLMSS3269, State Library of New South Wales.
8Thea Astley in Rosemary Sorensen, ‘Perfectly Calm Until She Writes’, Australian Book Review, 144, 1992, p. 10.
9Tom Keneally to author, Avalon, 12 June 2008.
10ibid.
11Patrick White, letter to Thea Astley, 24 March 1960, Thea Astley papers, UQFL97, Fryer Library, University of Queensland.
12Patrick White, inscription in book Selected Writings of Gérard de Nerval, Grove Press, New York, 1957, Thea Astley papers.
13Hal Porter, letter to Thea Astley, 27 November 1960, Thea Astley papers.
14ibid.
15Judy Ogilvie, The Push: An Impressionistic Memoir, Primavera Press, Sydney, 1995.
16Thea Astley in Jennifer Ellison (ed.), Rooms of Their Own, Penguin, Ringwood, Victoria, 1986, p. 60.
17‘A Correct Compassion’, (author not known), Times Literary Supplement, 1 April 1960, p. 205.
18Sidney J. Baker, ‘Social Satire’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 7 May 1960, p. 14.
19Kathryn Purnell, Luna, 18, 1984, pp. 40–43.
20Patrick White, letter to Thea Astley, 20 March 1961, Thea Astley papers.
21Robert Gray, ‘White Mischief’, The Australian, September 13–14 2008, pp. 4–5.
22Jesuit Society, letter to Phil Astley, 1 June 1961, Jesuit Archives, Melbourne.
23Eileen Astley, letter to Phil Astley, 29 June 1961, Jesuit Archives.
24Jesuit Society, letter to Phil Astley, 24 November 1961, Jesuit Archives.
25Obituary, The Journalist, Australian Journalists’ Association, August 1961, p. 3.
26Patrick White, letter to Thea Astley, 20 March 1961, Thea Astley papers.
27Thea Astley, Books and Writing with Robert Dessaix, ABC Radio, 8 March 1990, 48609, ABC Radio Archives.
28Thea Astley, The Well Dressed Explorer, Penguin, Melbourne, 1988, p. 26.
29Astley in Willbanks, Australian Voices, p. 37.
30Ed Gregson to author, New Brighton, 30 November 2006.
31Fay Zwicky, Lingua Franca (obituary compilation with Fay Zwicky and Mark Macleod), ABC radio, 28 August 2004, ABC Radio Archives.
32Yvonne Wyndham to author, Sydney, 8 January 2007.
33Ed Gregson to author, New Brighton, 30 November 2006.
34ibid.
35ibid.
36Hal Porter in Mary Lord, Hal Porter: A Man of Many Parts, Random House, Melbourne, 1994, p. 293.
37Thea Astley in Graeme Kinross-Smith, ‘Thea Astley’, Kunapipi, 4(1), 1982, p. 21.
38Barbara Abouchar to author, Sydney, 7 February 2008.
39Thea Astley in Candida Baker (ed.), Yacker: Australian Writers Talk about Their Work, Picador, Woollahra, New South Wales, 1986, p. 50; Thea Astley in Clifford Tolchard, ‘Thea Astley: Novelist and Teacher’, Walkabout, June 1969, p. 14.
40Astley in Ellison (ed.), Rooms of Their Own, p. 60.
41Carole Ferrier (ed.), As Good as a Yarn with You, Cambridge University Press, 1992.
42Astley in Baker (ed.), Yacker, pp. 42–43.
9 I merely crave an intelligent buddy
1Thea Astley, letter to Thelma Forshaw, 14 January 1963, MLMSS3431, State Library of New South Wales.
2Thea Astley, letter to George Ferguson, 12 April 1962, Beatrice Davis papers, State Library of New South Wales.
3Thea Astley in Clifford Tolchard, ‘Thea Astley: Novelist and Teacher’, Walkabout, June 1969, p. 14.
4Thea Astley, ‘Authors and Publishers Panel’, This Day Tonight, 13 November 1967, 218894, ABC Television Archives.
5Thea Astley, letter to Beatrice Davis, 27 May 1962, Angus & Robertson Archives, MLMSS3269, State Library of New South Wales.
6Thea Astley in Rosemary Sorensen, ‘Perfectly Calm Until She Writes’, Australian Book Review, 144, 1992, p. 10.
> 7Beatrice Davis, letter to Thea Astley, 9 December 1964, A&R Archives.
8Thea Astley, letter to Beatrice Davis, c. 1957, A&R Archives.
9Thea Astley, letter to Beatrice Davis, 25 February 1965, A&R Archives.
10Reader’s report, The Well Dressed Explorer, A&R Archives.
11Kylie Tennant, review of The Well Dressed Explorer, Meanjin Quarterly, 21, 1962, p. 509.
12Bob Burns, review of The Well Dressed Explorer, Prospect, 1, 1964, p. 29.
13Miles Franklin, letter to Criena Rohan, Jill Roe (ed.), My Congenials: Miles Franklin & Friends in Letters, vol. 2, 1939–1954, Angus & Robertson/HarperCollins, Sydney, 1993, p. 351.
14Thea Astley, quoted from a scene re-created in David Marr, Patrick White: A Life, Random House, Melbourne, 1991, p. 357.
15Barbara Abouchar to author, Sydney, 7 February 2008.
16ibid.
17Thea Astley, A Boat Load of Home Folk, Penguin, Melbourne, 1983, p. 198.
18Christina Stead in Hazel Rowley, Christina Stead: A Biography, William Heinemann, Melbourne, 1993, p. 319.
19 Thea Astley, letter to Beatrice Davis, n.d., A&R Archives.
20David Marr to author, Melbourne, September 1996.
21Thelma Forshaw to author, phone interview, 30 May 1995.
22Thea Astley, letter to George Turner, 29 April 1963, Thea Astley papers, UQFL97, Fryer Library, University of Queensland.
23Thea Astley, letter to Thelma Forshaw, 14 January 1963, MLMSS3431, SLNSW.
24ibid.
25ibid.
26Astley in Marr, Patrick White: A Life, p. 356.
27Patrick White, letter to Thea Astley, 16 May 1963, Thea Astley papers.
28Patrick White, letter to Thea Astley, 18 June 1963, Thea Astley papers.
29ibid.
30ibid.
31Eileen Astley, letter to Thea Astley, 18 April 1963, Thea Astley papers.
32Thea Astley, letter to Thelma Forshaw, 14 January 1963, MLMSS3431, SLNSW.
33Thelma Forshaw to author, phone interview, 30 May 1995.
34Yvonne Wyndham to author, Sydney, 11 January 2008.
35 Astley, A Boat Load of Home Folk, p. 194. ‘The silence of old marriage’ is a typical ‘Astley-on-marriage’ phrase.
36Beatrice Davis, letter to Thea Astley, 1 June 1962, A&R Archives.
37Thea Astley, letter to Beatrice Davis, n.d., A&R Archives.
38Patrick White, letter to Laurie Collinson, 27 November 1964, in David Marr (ed.), Patrick White: Letters, Random House, Sydney, 1994, p. 273.
39White to Collinson, in Marr (ed.), Patrick White: Letters, p. 274.
40Thea Astley, letter to Thelma Forshaw, 14 January 1963, MLMSS3431, SLNSW.
10 Writing as a neuter
1Thea Astley in Candida Baker (ed.), Yacker: Australian Writers Talk about Their Work, Picador, Woollahra, New South Wales, 1986, pp. 42–43.
2Ed Gregson to author, New Brighton, 30 November 2006.
3ibid.
4Thea Astley in The Bulletin, 85(4328), 26 January 1963.
5Thea Astley, postcard, n.d., Thea Astley papers, UQFL97, Fryer Library, University of Queensland.
6Thea Astley in Ray Willbanks (ed.), Australian Voices: Australian Writers and Their Work, University of Texas Press, Texas, 1991, p. 40.
7Thea Astley, Arts Today with Louise Adler, ABC radio, 1 January 1996, 69976, ABC Radio Archives.
8Thea Astley, The Slow Natives, Penguin, Melbourne, 1990, p. 28.
9ibid., p. 157.
10Thea Astley, The Coming Out Show with Jill Lennon, ABC radio, 3 July 1976, ABC Radio Archives.
11Astley, The Slow Natives, p. 16.
12Fay Zwicky to author, phone interview, 20 January 2009.
13Ed Gregson to author, New Brighton, 30 November 2006.
14ibid.
15Thea Astley, review of The Brigadier and the Golf Widow by John Cheever, The Sydney Morning Herald, c. 1964.
16ibid.
17Thea Astley, A Descant for Gossips, UQP, St Lucia, 1983, p. 172.
18Jessica Anderson, Taking Shelter, Penguin/Viking, Ringwood, Victoria, 1989, p. 22.
19Julia Kristeva saw this as both ‘self-assurance and nihilistic self-observation’. Julia Kristeva, Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection (trans. Leon S. Roudiez), Columbia University Press, New York, 1982, p. 194.
20Astley, The Slow Natives, p. 67.
21ibid., p. 161.
22Margaret Smith to author, Somersby, 25 February 2008.
23ibid.
24Ed Gregson to author, New Brighton, 30 November 2006.
25Lisa Morrison to author, Byron Bay, 27 November, 2007.
26Beatrice Davis, letter to Thea Astley, 9 December 1964, Angus & Robertson Archives, MLMSS3269, State Library of New South Wales.
27Thea Astley, dedication, The Acolyte, UQP, St Lucia, 1980.
28 Neil Jillet, ‘Australian Suburban Agony’, review of The Slow Natives, The Age, 6 November 1965, p. 21.
29ibid.
30Thea Astley in ‘Soul for Sale: Just for Jazz’, 18 July 1966.
31ibid.
32Tom Keneally to author, Avalon, 12 June 2008.
33ibid.
34Tom Keneally, ‘A Novelist Looks at Prose Writing’, Opinion, August 1967, p. 36.
35J. M. Couper, ‘The Novels of Thea Astley’, Meanjin Quarterly, xxvi, September 1967, pp. 332–337.
36Ezra Pound, ABC of Reading quoted in ‘Music’, Collins Thesaurus (new 1st ed.), HarperCollins, Glasgow, 1995, p. 642.
37Thea Astley in Amanda Smith, ‘Thea Astley’, Publishers Weekly, 30 March 1990, p. 43.
38Arthur Phillips, letter to Thea Astley, 23 February 1965, Thea Astley papers.
39Astley in ‘Soul for Sale: Just for Jazz’, 1966.
40Robert Drewe to author, Melbourne, 2009.
41Thea Astley in Robert Drewe, ‘Profile of a Prize Novelist’, The Age, 28 May 1966, p. 22.
42Tom Keneally to author, Avalon, 12 June 2008.
43ibid.
44Richard Whitington to author, Sydney, 6 February 2009.
45Tom Keneally to author, Avalon, 12 June 2008.
46Yvonne Wyndham to author, Sydney, January 2007.
47Richard Whitington to author, Sydney, 6 February 2009.
48Betty Judd to author, Coffs Harbour, 25 November 2006.
49Richard Whitington to author, Sydney, 6 February 2009.
50Margaret Smith to author, Somersby, 25 February 2008.
51Ed Gregson to author, New Brighton, 30 November 2006.
52Principal Celebrant at the Requiem Mass for Father Philip Astley S.J., 19 June 1997, notes provided by Michael McGirr.
53Margaret Smith to author, Somersby, 25 February 2008.
54Astley, The Coming Out Show with Jill Lennon, ABC Radio Archives.
55Beatrice Davis, letter to Mr A. J. T. Ford (registrar at Macquarie University), c. 1966, A&R Archives.
11 The oldest senior tutor in the Commonwealth
1Thea Astley, letter to Professor A. Gibbs (School of English and Linguistics, Macquarie University), 30 November 1976, Thea Astley papers, UQFL97, Fryer Library, University of Queensland.
2Bruce Mansfield & Mark Hutchinson, Liberality of Opportunity: A History of Macquarie University 1964–1989, Macquarie University/Hale & Iremonger, Sydney, 1992, pp. 58, 60.
3Sue La Ganza to author, phone interview, 2 October 2014.
4Leigh Dale, The Enchantment of English: Professing English Literatures at Australian Universities, Sydney University Press, Sydney, 2012, p. 298.
5Joan Kirkby to author, Sydney, January 2008.
6John Ryan to author, Sydney, 13 February 2008.
7J. M. Couper,
‘The Novels of Thea Astley’, Meanjin Quarterly, xxvi, September 1967, pp. 332–337.
8Thea Astley, letter to Clem Christesen, 9 October 1967, U84, box 4, Melbourne University Archives.
9Joan Kirkby to author, Sydney, January 2008.
10Tom Keneally to author, Avalon, 12 June 2008.
11ibid.
12ibid.
13Reader’s report, A Boat Load of Home Folk, Angus & Robertson Archives, MLMSS3269, State Library of New South Wales.
14Mark McKenna, An Eye for Eternity: The Life of Manning Clark, The Miegunyah Press, Melbourne University Publishing, Melbourne, 2011.
15Thea Astley in Ray Willbanks (ed.), Australian Voices: Australian Writers and Their Work, University of Texas Press, Texas, 1991, p. 36.
16Thea Astley, The Multiple Effects of Rainshadow, Viking/Penguin, Melbourne, 1996, p. 65.
17Thea Astley, A Kindness Cup, Penguin, Melbourne, 1989, p. 1.
18Thea Astley, The Slow Natives, Penguin, Melbourne, 1990, p. 128.
19Thea Astley, A Boat Load of Home Folk, Penguin, Melbourne, 1983, pp. 2, 142, 92, 3, 194, 23.
20Thea Astley, The Coming Out Show with Jill Lennon, ABC radio, 3 July 1976, ABC Radio Archives.
21Reader’s report, A Boat Load of Home Folk, A&R Archives.
22Hal Porter, letter to Thea Astley, 13 February 1968, Thea Astley papers.
23Anne Baxter, letter to Thea Astley, n.d., Thea Astley papers.
24Time magazine comment on The Slow Natives quoted in Beatrice Davis, letter to Alec Bolton, 26 July 1968, A&R Archives.
25Christina Stead, letter to Alec Bolton, 21 September 1968, A&R Archives.
26Alec Bolton, memo to Beatrice Davis, n.d., A&R Archives.
27Alec Bolton, letter to John Abernethy, 18 October 1968, A&R Archives.
28Thea Astley, ‘Writing in North Queensland’, LINQ, 9(1), 1981, p. 4.
29Joan Kirkby to author, Sydney, January 2008.
30John Ryan to author, Sydney, 13 February 2008.
31Eileen Astley, letter to Thea Astley, 5 November 1968, Thea Astley papers.
32ibid.
33Thea Astley in Amanda Smith, ‘Thea Astley’, Publishers Weekly, 30 March 1990, p. 42.
34Astley in Willbanks, Australian Voices, p. 37.
35Thea Astley to Andrew Olle, ABC radio, 7 March 1990, ABC Radio Archives.
36Thea Astley, ‘The Author as a Critic of Society’, typescript, 1970, Thea Astley papers.
