The Visit

by Amy Witting, Susan Johnson (Introduction)

In The Visit—Amy Witting’s debut novel, first published when she was almost sixty—a group of Bangoree residents gather to read plays by Beckett and Brecht. But their literary pursuits, and their lives, take an unexpected turn after it is revealed that the late Roderick Fitzallan set some of his celebrated love poems in their small country town. Who is the local mystery woman who inspired Fitzallan’s verse all those years ago?

Amy Witting was born in Annandale, an inner suburb of Sydney, in 1918. She attended Sydney University, then taught French and English in state schools. Beginning late in life she published six novels, including The Visit, I for Isobel, Isobel on the Way to the Corner Shop and Maria’s War; two collections of short stories; two books of verse, Travel Diary and Beauty Is the Straw; and her Collected Poems.

She had numerous poems and short stories published in magazines such as Quadrant and The New Yorker.

Witting was awarded the 1993 Patrick White Prize. Isobel on the Way to the Corner Shop won the Age Book of the Year Award.

Amy Witting died in 2001.

 

‘Her writing is so simple and tough and direct.’ Helen Garner

Genres: Australia

288 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1977

About the author

Joan Austral Levick was born Joan Fraser in the Sydney suburb of Annandale in 1918. She studied at the University of Sydney and later taught French and English at state secondary schools. In 1948 she was transferred to Kempsey where she met Les Levick, a fellow teacher. They were married in December 1948. In 1953 Witting was diagnosed with TB after a routine school check, and it was while she was confined to the Bodington Sanitorium that she began to write more seriously. Witting has had numerous poems and short stories published in journals such as Quadrant and The New Yorker.

Witting was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award in 1990 for I for Isobel and again in 2000 for Isobel on the Way to the Corner Shop. In 1993 she was awarded the Patrick White Prize.

Amy Witting died a few weeks after her last novel was published in September 2001.

Reviews

[Elisa · Rating 1 out of 5]

DECISAMENTE NO!
Troppo lungo e la parte interessante arriva troppo tardi.
Grande hype, ma purtroppo non si è rivelato tale.

[Calzean · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think I have now exhausted the local library's holdings of Amy Witting's books. And all of them have been great to read as the author dissects life in Australia (mainly in the 70s). In this book, she takes us to a small country town in NSW. There is a drunken wife, a wife who feels incomplete due to being childless, a young teacher not quite ready for long-term relationships, a boy in his last year of high school, a struggling doctor and an amateur reading group preparing to stage a play. But the author gives us another great icy old lady (for another example read I for Isobel) - the mother-in-law from hell - who is not all she pretends.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

According to Wikipedia , the writing career of Amy Witting, A.M. (1918-2001) always had to be subordinate to earning her living as a teacher of English and French.  So although Thea Astley's encouragement led to publication of a short story in The New Yorker in 1965, and Witting had poetry published in Quadrant, her first novel, The Visit, wasn't published until 1977 when she had retired, and was almost sixty.

The novel was published (with a dreadfully dreary cover) by the inimitable Beatrice Davis, by then at Thomas Nelson rather than at Angus & Robertson where she had made her name.  (Davis went on to reject I for Isobel (see my review) and so did McPhee Gribble, which just goes to show that even the best of editors can get it wrong. Because I for Isobel went on to be a bestseller when it was finally published by Penguin in 1990.  It won the Fellowship of Australian Writers (FAW) Barbara Ramsden Award; and it was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin.  More recognition came in 1993 when Witting won the Patrick White Award, and she went on to publish A Change in the Lighting (1994); Maria’s War (1998), and Isobel on her way to the Corner Shop’ (2000).  (This sequel to I for Isobel was short-listed for the Miles Franklin Award 2000, and won The Age Book of the Year Award in the same year.)  After Cynthia was published posthumously in 2001.  Any Witting is one of a small stable of wonderful Australian women writers whose literary fiction was not just a critical success but also much loved by her readership.

Set in the fictional town of Bangoree, (which may have been a disguised version of the NSW town of Kemspey*), The Visit introduces two character types who emerge in Witting's other novels: Barbara is the introverted, insecure character who is the victim, and her mother-in-law Belle Dutton is the brutal bullying mother figure.  Old Mrs Dutton thinks she has just come for a visit, but in fact her other daughter-in-law Ivy has absconded after years of enduring her.  She's refusing to come home to her husband Lionel if Mrs Dutton is there, so now it's the hapless Barbara's turn.  The cast of characters also includes Barbara's friend Naomi, the town librarian and a single mother; Cathy, a young teacher yearning for but not ready for a long-term relationship; Peter, an adolescent boy wondering if a relationship with his long-absent father would help him in his search for identity; Phil Truebody whose career as a doctor has been sabotaged by his embarrassingly alcoholic wife; and Brian, a teacher who fancies himself as a great actor, but isn't. 

The Visit is a work of theatre-fiction.  These characters enliven the cultural life of the town with play readings, but when Beckett's Endgame is chosen, they decide (with some heavy-handed insistence from Brian) to stage the play because it's on the sixth-form reading list.  The summary at Wikipedia explains the significance of this play to the novel's plot:

Briefly, it is about a blind, paralysed man and his servant who await an unspecified “end” which seems to be the end of their relationship, death, and the end of the actual play itself.

Barbara, the town beauty who knows how useless beauty is, is paralysed into indecision and victimhood by the mother-in-law from hell.  Mrs Dutton knows exactly what buttons to push.  Barbara's solace is Naomi, single mother to Peter, with issues of her own.  This excerpt is a splendid example of Witting's subtle mastery of multiple meanings:

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2022/01/13/t...

[Text Publishing · Rating 5 out of 5]

‘Her writing is so simple and tough and direct.’
Helen Garner

[Brenda Rosser]

wonderful, of course

[Cristina - Athenae Noctua · Rating 2 out of 5]

Né la sintesi di copertina né il titolo rendono giustizia al contenuto, meglio riassunto dall'originale The Visit. Non emerge nel racconto alcuna signora delle storie, mentre il titolo originario si adatta ad un motivo ricorrente fra le pagine: la visite di Fitzallan e del suo biografo a Bangoree, la visita di Peter al padre a Sidney, la visita di Phil alla vecchia ospite di Barbara. A tenere il filo della narrazione sono infatti gli incontri fra i personaggi, l'entrata di uno nella casa e nella vita dell'altro, a movimentare delle situazioni stagnanti e imprimere delle svolte. Il romanzo, in ogni caso, non appare paticolarmente vivace, se non in alcuni capitoli; la presenza di numerosi personaggi, che avrebbe offerto un interessante sviluppo narrativo, diventa a tratti una presenza fuorviante.
https://athenaenoctua2013.blogspot.co...

[Le pagine di Elena · Rating 1 out of 5]

Un libro che mi ha innervosito: ho letto 268 pagine e non ho capito nulla.

I dialoghi sono scritti malissimo, non si capisce mai chi stia parlando, se si sta rivolgendo ad altri interlocutori o se stia semplicemente pensando nella sua testa.
Non si capisce chi siano i personaggi e che relazione ci sia tra di loro: amici? Parenti? Conoscenti? Boh.
Si passa da una situazione all’altra senza un minimo collegamento logico, con buchi di trama abissali.
In poche parole: NON SI CAPISCE NULLA

[Roberta Zappalà · Rating 3 out of 5]

Un romanzo dal grande potenziale inespresso.