Pulse en una miniatura para ir a Google Books.
Cargando... Closing downpor Sally Abbott
Ninguno Cargando...
Inscríbete en LibraryThing para averiguar si este libro te gustará. Actualmente no hay Conversaciones sobre este libro. sin reseñas | añadir una reseña
Premios
What would you do if all you held to be familiar was lost? Australia's rural towns and communities are closing down, much of Australia is being sold to overseas interests, states and countries and regions are being realigned worldwide. Town matriarch Granna Adams, her grandson Roberto, the lonely and thoughtful Clare - all try in their own way to hold on to their sense of self, even as the world around them fractures. The past is long gone. The question now is: do they have a future? An extraordinary and timely debut novel from a compelling new Australian voice No se han encontrado descripciones de biblioteca. |
Debates activosNinguno
Google Books — Cargando... GénerosSistema Decimal Melvil (DDC)823.92Literature English & Old English literatures English fiction Modern Period 2000-ValoraciónPromedio:
¿Eres tú?Conviértete en un Autor de LibraryThing. |
Sally Abbott was the inaugural winner of the Richell Prize in 2015, chosen, according to an interview at The Guardian, from among 969 other submissions, and Closing Down was published in 2017. The novel went on to be shortlisted for an Aurealis Award for Science Fiction, which surprised me because it never occurred to me that this book was SF. The Aurealis Award for Speculative Fiction has categories for SF, Fantasy and Horror, but doesn't differentiate between SF and Speculative Fiction so by their definition I've read lots of SF and by Wikipedia's definition, (see below) I've read very little.
Closing Down is set in a disturbing future world, but it's a very near future world, with recognisable elements exposed for what they are. The world has been corporatised and realigned, and this means that uneconomic small towns are being closed down and the people relocated to mega cities. Shelter, for the 'lucky' ones, is in tiny flats in soulless concrete canyons, but the waiting lists are years long. For the others that means refugee camps on a scale not so far from those horrific wastelands in the Middle East and Europe, and for others, it means joining the walkers. These people evade the travel permits and patrols, and—carrying everything they own—walk out into the arid interior and are never heard of again.
Clare, about to be homeless because her ratbag cottage has to be demolished because it isn't fireproof, calls the unemployment office to notify them of her change of address. She doesn't have a new one, but she won't be living at the old one any more. After she'd pressed every available option and waited for three hours, a voice did come on the line. She needn't have bothered.
The voice goes on to explain that her phone is the naughty lover who tells us all your secrets.' They have a history of exactly where's she been, and they know she hasn't had a paid job for eight years, and that her husband last worked at a canning factory which doesn't exist any more. This voice knows how to warn off any complaints: they could put an alert on Clare since the fudging around her work history is suspicious. The voice knows it isn't possible for Clare and her husband Phil to survive on handouts. ( )