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Datsunland by Stephen Orr
Category: Fiction
A long-deserted drive-in, waiting for a rerun of the one story that might give it life; a child who discovers his identity in a photograph hidden in his parents' room ...Stephen Orr's stories are happy to let you in, but not out. In Datsunland, his characters are outsiders peering into worlds they don't ...Show more
Dissonance: A Novel by Stephen Orr
Category: Fiction
Dissonance begins with piano practice. Fifteen-year-old Erwin Hergert is forced to tackle scales and studies for six hours a day by his mother, Madge, who is determined to produce Australia's first great pianist. To help Erwin focus, Madge has exiled her husband, Johann, to the back shed. Jo is diagnose ...Show more
Hill of Grace by Stephen Orr
Category: Fiction
The rhythm of the seasons, church, and his neighbours and friends form the pattern of William Miller's days in Australia's Barossa Valley until the day he has a vision in his vineyard. The second coming is due, sooner rather than later. According to William's calculations, 21 March 1952 will be the day ...Show more
Incredible Floridas by Stephen Orr
Category: Australiana
As Hitler's war looms, famous Australian artist Roland Griffin returns home with his family to live a simple life of shared plums and low-cut lawns in the suburbs. In the yard: a daughter, and a son, Hal, growing up with a preoccupied father who is always in his shed stretching canvases and painting out ...Show more
Sincerely, Ethel Malley by Stephen Orr
Category: Fiction
In the darkest days of World War II, Ethel Malley lives a quiet life on Dalmar Street, Croydon. One day she finds a collection of poems written by her late (and secretive) brother, Ern. She sends them to Max Harris, co-editor of modernist magazine Angry Penguins. He reads them and declares Ern an undisc ...Show more
The Boy in Time by Stephen Orr
Category: Fiction
A plane in the distance, artillery, his father waiting, and the boy wonders what to do. As with every story in this collection, the child born into a world he can't comprehend, but stands waiting for answers, overcome with possibilities. The Boy in Time charts this child's progress from the Outer Hebrid ...Show more
The Cruel City: Is Adelaide the Murder Capital of Australia? by Stephen Orr
Category: Non-Fiction
Why is it that Adelaide, a beautiful city of churches and lush gardens, a place renowned for its support of the arts and culture, has become better known as the epicenter of some of Australia's weirdest and most brutal crimes? One of its denizens seeks the answers in this fascinating investigation. Some ...Show more
The Fierce Country : True stories from Australia's unsettled heart, 1830 to today by Stephen Orr
Category: Australiana
The Fierce Country holds no malice, but neither pity. It just sits, and bakes, and waits. We do the rest. We provoke it when we mine above its aquifers. Weaken it, and ourselves, when we leave mountains of asbestos to blow away in the wind. Misunderstand it when we see it as nothing more than a resource ...Show more
The Hands: An Australian Pastoral by Stephen Orr
Category: Fiction
He didn't look like he could jump a bull, but she knew he could. It was all in the hands, he'd often explain. The will. The bloody mindedness. On a cattle station that stretches beyond the horizon, seven people are trapped by their history and the need to make a living. Trevor Wilkie, the good father, h ...Show more
The Lanternist by Stephen Orr
Category: Children's Fiction
Age range 9+1901. The slide clunks into the lantern, and Phantoms come alive on the wall. The father-and-son Magic Lantern team of Bert and Tom Eliot are masters of The Art of the Story. The only problem is that they are missing a wife and mother. Then one morning eleven-year-old Tom wakes to find his f ...Show more
This Excellent Machine by Stephen Orr
Category: Fiction
Clem Whelan's got a problem: trapped in the suburbs in the Sunnyboy summer of 1984 he has to decide what to do with his life. Matriculation? He's more than able, but not remotely interested. Become a writer? His failed lawyer neighbour Peter encourages him, but maybe it's just another dead end? To make ...Show more
Time's Long Ruin: A Novel by Stephen Orr
Category: Fiction
Nine-year-old Henry Page is a club-footed, deep-thinking loner, spending his summer holidays reading, roaming the melting streets of his suburb, playing with his best friend Janice and her younger brother and sister. Then one day Janice asks Henry to spend the day at the beach with them. He declines, a ...Show more