Showing posts with label Stephen Orr. Show all posts

Thursday, December 16, 2021

Books that changed the face of fiction / Pedro Páramo by Juan Rulfo

Books that changed the face of fiction: Pedro Páramo

BOOKS & POETRY

Mexican writer Juan Rulfo’s dark fable Pedro Páramo ignores boundaries between the living and the dead – but is more than just a ghost story. It is, writes Stephen Orr, a book that created a genre.

Stephen Orr

Wednesday, January 30, 2019

Rulfo was the great Mexican and, later, by extension, Latin American writer. He was born in Apulco in 1917 at a time of radical change and experimentation in literature (Edgar Rice Burroughs was still publishing Tarzan novels, and Conrad, The Shadow Line, but meanwhile, Ford Madox Ford had just produced The Good Soldier and Joyce was busy at work on Ulysses).

Books that changed the face of fiction: Under the Volcano

BOOKS & POETRY

In this first article in a series about books that have changed or challenged fiction, Adelaide author Stephen Orr looks at Malcolm Lowry’s Under the Volcano – a booze-soaked novel that is far greater than the sum of its parts.

Stephen Orr

January 7, 2019

There seems a niche market for alcoholic, abusive, self-destructive writers with a death-wish. Dylan Thomas, Hemingway – although Malcolm Lowry was, and is, by far the most interesting drunk scribbler. He suckled the teat at 14 because he felt neglected by his mother and, later, guilty (for the rest of his life) about the suicide of his Cambridge room-mate, Paul Fitte, whose homosexual advances Lowry had rejected.

Books that changed the face of fiction: Wise Blood

BOOKS & POETRY

The ‘strange/beautiful’ work of Flannery O’Connor – a writer who died too soon and who many have spent years trying to understand – is explored by Adelaide author Stephen Orr as part of his series on books that have changed or challenged fiction.

Thousands of books were burned under the Nazi regime. Photo: Georg Pahl

Books that changed the face of fiction: Blutsbrüder

BOOKS & POETRY

Ernst Haffner’s novel Blutsbrüder (Blood Brothers), set in the shadows of Berlin, was burned by the Nazis a year after publication. While the lost gem has been rediscovered, the fate of its author remains a mystery, writes Stephen Orr.

Stephen Orr

January 23, 2019

You know the feeling. A book you’ve been wanting to read for ages, you’re halfway through, loving it, dreading the end (not the ending), when you’ll have to leave this better-than-reality world.

The nostalgic cover illustration of Stephen Orr's This Excellent Machine.

Book extract: Stephen Orr’s This Excellent Machine

BOOKS & POETRY

Adelaide author Stephen Orr’s latest novel is autobiographical, set in suburban Australia in the 1980s where a young boy struggles to make sense of the world and figure out what he wants to do with his life.

Clem Whelan, young narrator of This Excellent Machine, is still at school but not interested in matriculating. He could be a mechanic, like his Pop, who is facing the onset of dementia. Or perhaps a writer – “a novelist, like Dickens”.

“This Excellent Machine” by Stephen Orr

Post authorBy Jan Carson
Post date27 January 202 on “This Excellent Machine” by Stephen Orr

January 2021

This Excellent Machine is the first volume in an anticipated trilogy of childhood novels by Australian writer, Stephen Orr. Set in a single neighbourhood of a small Australian town in 1984 it is narrated by seventeen year old Clem who lives with his mother, his sister, Jen and his Pop, Doug. Pop has been a surrogate father to Clem since his own dad disappeared when he was a small child. Clem is incredibly close to his grandfather. They fix up cars together in the drive and have been plotting for some time to take off on a road trip, using an old treasure map to track down a seam of gold. As the novel begins, the family are just beginning to realise the implications of Pop’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis. Whilst Dementia isn’t the primary focus of the novel -it’s more a coming of age kind of piece- Pop’s illness is a theme consistently revisited throughout the novel and shown to impact Clem’s life in significant ways.

Stephen Orr

Adelaide author longlisted for Miles Franklin Award

BOOKS & POETRY

Adelaide author Stephen Orr’s “The Hands” – described as part Australian pastoral, part tragedy – is one of nine Australian novels longlisted for the 2016 Miles Franklin Literary Award.

Suzie Keen

Tuesday, April 5, 2016

The Hands – An Australian Pastoral, published by Wakefield Press, is set on an isolated cattle station where tragedy strikes a fourth-generation farming family already struggling with the drought, secrets from the past and fears for the future.

Thursday, December 16, 2021