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Title: Australia Street
Author: Ann Whitehead
Narrator: Julie Nihill
Format: Unabridged
Length: 12 hrs and 54 mins
Language: English
Release date: 01-06-10
Publisher: Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd
Ratings: 3.5 of 5 out of 5 votes
Genres: Fiction, Historical
Publisher's Summary:
Wonderful writing with all the hallmarks of a Ruth Park novel. Australia Street, with its cast of endearing and memorable characters, makes for a superb listening experience.
Friday the 13th of February 1948 is Hannah Gordon's 36th birthday. Her daughter, Allie, turns 16 on the very same day. What's more, it's a full moon. Hannah doesn't need Grandma Ade's warning that bad luck is coming to realise the odds are against them.
Hannah Gordon has always wanted to be someone important, yet she's stuck in an inner-city back street, fighting to keep hold of her children, her home, and her sense of self. Then a devastating accident sets off a chain of events that will rock the family foundations to the core and change lives forever.
Editorial Reviews:
Friday the 13th is an unlucky day for Hannah Gordon, even as she celebrates her birthday, as well as her daughter's, under a full moon, in February 1948. A tragic accident commences a tumultuous year for Hannah, struggling to take care of her children after her husband leaves her and she loses her job due to a change in Australian law following World War II. Ann Whitehead peppers Australia Street with rich details of inner-city Sydney, and Julie Nihill's hardscrabble style perfectly suits the working-class setting while also giving Hannah a hardy strength even as her life turns upside down.
Members Reviews:
I enjoyed reading this book This was my time
I enjoyed reading this book This was my time, my memories It was a simple storyline but you really felt part of the family experience I thought it was well worth reading
`Bad luck's coming, I can feel it in me water, ...'
This novel commences on Friday the 13th of February 1948 and chronicles a year in the life of the Gordon family who live in Australia Street in inner city Sydney. This particular day is Hannah Gordon's thirty-sixth birthday, and her daughter Allie's sixteenth. It's a full moon as well, and Hannah doesn't need Grandma Ade's warning about bad luck.
Hannah Gordon has two teenage daughters, Janet and Allie, and a younger foster son Hal. She loses her job when the government passes a law forbidding women to drive taxis. Around the same time, her husband Tom leaves her and moves in with the widow of his old friend. Tom, suffering after his involvement in the Second World War, thinks that his friend's widow needs his help more than Hannah does.
The next year is fairly eventful for the Gordons, their extended family and friends. There's a wealth of detail about life in Australia Street, and the portrayal of war veterans who experienced the bombing in Darwin acts as a reminder of this aspect of World War Two. The changed roles of women as a consequence of World War Two becomes as issue after the war when ex-servicemen need jobs as Hannah discovers when she loses her job.
I enjoyed this novel: the people depicted are mainly the `battlers' and if occasionally it all became too melodramatic well, I didn't really mind. I was happy to read about their lives and grateful that I wasn't living them. Some of the dialogue jerked me out of the flow at times - and then I'd remember having heard speech just like it.
`We got on with it. That's what we had to do.'
`Australia Street' is Ann Whitehead's second novel. Her first, `Blackwattle Road' was written under the name of Ann Charlton.
