My Father's Moon

Vera Wright Series #1

by Elizabeth Jolley

My Father's Moon

Genres: Fiction, Literature

171 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1989

About the author

Monica Elizabeth Jolley was an award-winning writer who settled in Western Australia in the late 1950s. She was 53 years old when her first book was published, and she went on to publish fifteen novels (including an autobiographical trilogy), four short story collections, and three non-fiction books, publishing well into her 70s and achieving significant critical acclaim. She was also a pioneer of creative writing teaching in Australia, counting many well known writers such as Tim Winton among her students. Her novels explore alienated characters and the nature of loneliness and entrapment.

Honours:
1987: Western Australian Citizen of the Year
1988: Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for services to literature
1989: Canada/Australia Literary Award
1997: Australian Living Treasure

Reviews

[Trevor · Rating 5 out of 5]

I mean, how could you not read a book that was called that? What a title! This is the first of a series of three novels based on Jolley's life - with Cabin Fever next and The George's Wife the last one. I loved this book, but got stuck on Cabin Fever and never finished the three of them. I ought to go back to them again and start over.

But this one was very special.

[Kirsty · Rating 3 out of 5]

Perhaps more of a 3.5 star read. I did enjoy it well enough, but I doubt I will continue with the series.

[C. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this.

[notgettingenough · Rating 4 out of 5]

Apt that Adelaide just this weekend held Speaking from the South conference. Led by Coetzee, it is (yet) another get-together of writers bemoaning the cultural dominance - ignorance born of presumed superiority - of the North. If Elizabeth Jolley had stayed in the UK, she would have become a famous writer and a band of academics would be milking her texts for their livelihood. But she moved to Perth on the west edge of Australia, thus damning her to a career which is monumentally underestimated. This is the third of hers I've read, and they keep getting better. The protagonist in this one engages our sympathy despite her being rather ghastly - or perhaps because. I kept thinking how like hers my life has been, right from the ways she is not happy as a child, not in the detail but in the sentiment. It was only after finishing it and looking around for people's thoughts on it that I discovered it is the first of a trilogy. Number two is on my pile, but I have yet to spot number three at my usual bookshops. I'm expecting a lot of cringing as I carry on.

[Sean · Rating 2 out of 5]

Although clever and tightly written there is a feeling that there is nothing new here. There is a parade of modern literary stylistic tricks at play but to what end ? In the modern world this book seems so much more anachronistic than a novel written a hundred years ago; there feels like no excuse for such a timid, conservative work that is written as if the last 50 years of progress never happened. The characters must be true to the time-frame in which they are written but there is no perspective, no knowing satire, no counterpoint, no authorial voice giving context to the events. This is then compounded ironically by more recent revelations about the author's life. One feels Jolley is pandering to the conservative nature of her perceived audience.

[Alison · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good read on the train from Kalgoorlie to Perth. About a young woman nursing during the war in England, prob partly autobiographical and classic Jolley voice and nonlinear storyline.

[Lesley Cairns · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautifully drawn and often discomforting picture of adolescence and young adulthood during wartime London. Haunting.

[Sharon · Rating 2 out of 5]

She used to be one of my favourite authors but I haven't read her for about 10 years. It's probably me who's changed, but this book didn't grab me

[Ellen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Vera is an interesting character. Feels warm and secure in her family. As a nurse in a military hospital being a student her eyes are opened wide by situations that life affords her and she experiences what life is about the good and the bad. She then finds herself pregnant an unmarried mother, leaves home and travels to Fairfields, but she doesn't know what is in store for her there thinking it will be her saving grace, a place of poetry, music and interesting people.

[Susan Austin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Although it's much acclaimed, this book was too scatty for me. It went back and forth and round and about and was just too vague and tangential for me to get into it. The main character was not a nice person which didn't help. I don't think I'll read the other two books that follow on although I'm semi-interested in seeing how her life unfolds.

[Sue Gould · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read My Father's Moon and the two sequels as one long novel. Took me a while to manage Jolley's style, which I found confusing, with lots of moving around between times, and events, and characters....almost like scenes in a play which are unconnected, or only vaguely connected. But once I became accustomed to this, and the pieces started to come together I enjoyed this book.

[Georgie O'Dwyer · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found it a bit tricky to read because it jumps around time frames, Vera is not a madly likeable character but it is the sort of book that will stay with you...

[Lesley Moseley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read all her books, decades ago. All fantastic.

[Belgrave Book Club]

Suggested by Helen Garner