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Turning point
340 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1996
9 people want to read
About the author
Helen Townsend
29 books6 followersBorn in 1947, Helen Townsend was educated in Melbourne and Sydney and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in History and Economics from Sydney University in 1968.
She worked as a researcher in the Health Department of ABC radio and television for ten years, before becoming a full-time writer. Her many projects since have included the position of researcher for the 1990 ABC/Film Australia documentary of her book Baby Boomers, writer/researcher of a one-hour documentary on Antarctica for Channel 7, researcher for the First State 88 Bicentennial Transport Exhibition and story researcher for the film Phar Lap, among others. The National Times, The Sun Herald, Woman's Day and Cleo have all counted Helen as a freelance contributor. She was also the writer of Australia's first internet soap, 'Friday's Beach', shown on the Microsoft network.
Helen has had 17 books published including Turning Point (1996), Real Men (1994), Heroic Measures (1993), Baby Crazy (1990), Baby Boomers Growing up in Australia in the 1940s, '50s and '60s (1988), Adult Children and Their Elderly Parents (1989) and Balancing Act.
She is married to Steve and has three children, Sophie, Lewis and Patrick. Helen's particular interests are literature, history and social issues.
She worked as a researcher in the Health Department of ABC radio and television for ten years, before becoming a full-time writer. Her many projects since have included the position of researcher for the 1990 ABC/Film Australia documentary of her book Baby Boomers, writer/researcher of a one-hour documentary on Antarctica for Channel 7, researcher for the First State 88 Bicentennial Transport Exhibition and story researcher for the film Phar Lap, among others. The National Times, The Sun Herald, Woman's Day and Cleo have all counted Helen as a freelance contributor. She was also the writer of Australia's first internet soap, 'Friday's Beach', shown on the Microsoft network.
Helen has had 17 books published including Turning Point (1996), Real Men (1994), Heroic Measures (1993), Baby Crazy (1990), Baby Boomers Growing up in Australia in the 1940s, '50s and '60s (1988), Adult Children and Their Elderly Parents (1989) and Balancing Act.
She is married to Steve and has three children, Sophie, Lewis and Patrick. Helen's particular interests are literature, history and social issues.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
August 21, 2024
My rating might be impacted by the heart-warming nostalgia rereading this book produced. I first read it in London in 1998, around the time the novel is set. For more on Turning Point, take a look at my review on Instagram, @myyearofrereading. Look out for an interview with Helen Townsend, too.
Fav quotes:
Desire is a distant thing, a good camera angle. Love is when you want someone close up, even after garlic prawns. – p 5
‘Two minute noodles?’ said Mary Jane sceptically. ‘I think it was just lust.’ – p 142
Sophie was hit with an overwhelming nostalgia and wondered how she had discarded it all so carelessly. How could she recreate it in London? Her life now was concentrated in small areas, none of which offered any means of expansion. – P 206
The person she knew as Mary Jane was not quite Mary Jane. The person she knew as herself, that she so intimately and incontrovertibly felt to be herself, was therefore also a construction of bits and pieces, of truth and exaggeration, fragments of sense and experience cobbled together by her own unreliable mind. In this, Sophie felt, she was no different from the rest of humanity. It simply felt like a small insight, a reminder that she and others remained unknown, outside and beyond the crowded, complex, small- scale design she had created of her own life. – p 234
Fav quotes:
Desire is a distant thing, a good camera angle. Love is when you want someone close up, even after garlic prawns. – p 5
‘Two minute noodles?’ said Mary Jane sceptically. ‘I think it was just lust.’ – p 142
Sophie was hit with an overwhelming nostalgia and wondered how she had discarded it all so carelessly. How could she recreate it in London? Her life now was concentrated in small areas, none of which offered any means of expansion. – P 206
The person she knew as Mary Jane was not quite Mary Jane. The person she knew as herself, that she so intimately and incontrovertibly felt to be herself, was therefore also a construction of bits and pieces, of truth and exaggeration, fragments of sense and experience cobbled together by her own unreliable mind. In this, Sophie felt, she was no different from the rest of humanity. It simply felt like a small insight, a reminder that she and others remained unknown, outside and beyond the crowded, complex, small- scale design she had created of her own life. – p 234
February 19, 2020
Chewing gum for the eyes.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews