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The Aunts' House
Sydney, 1942Recently orphaned, Angel Martin moves into a boarding house populated by an assortment of eccentric and colourful characters. She's befriended by the gregarious Winifred Varnham &– a vision in exotic fabrics &– and the numerically gifted Barnaby Grange. But not everyone is kind and her scrimping landlady, Missus Potts, is only the beginning of Angel's troubles. Angel refuses to accept her fate and focusses her affections on her two maiden aunts. Despite their resistance, she is determined to forge a sense of belonging. Her visits to the aunts' house on the Bay soon expand her world in ways she couldn't have imagined. Elizabeth Stead brings her classic subversive wit and personal insight to this nostalgic portrait of wartime Sydney. In Angel Martin, she has created a singular and irrepressible character. A true original.
The Book of Tides
I will dream of that place - I will dream of a sea god and sandstone painted by a sun and carved by and ocean, and a flame tree will grow in my heart and I will smile in memory of the harbour . . . Beccy Holt is full of dreams. But she is also a survivor. When she moves away from a hippie commune and into the respectable village of Proudie Bay, she must learn who to love, and how; when to mourn, and when to celebrate. Another stirring, beautifully written novel by Elizabeth Stead.
The Gospel of Gods and Crocodiles
Missionary Amen Morley arrives on a tropical island to find a community largely untouched by the modern world. A magnet for eccentric characters, the island paradise soon becomes a hotspot of conflicting cultures.The preachers are competing to save souls, while others have come to make a new beginning. There's Herbert Glass, the English doctor who cures clocks, Missy Wing, the Chinese trader, and Sam Maitland, who the locals dub the 'crocodile man'.The islanders are bemused by the behaviour of these strange intruders. But instead of being the ones doing the converting, the foreigners end up most transformed by this extraordinary place.The Gospel of Gods and Crocodiles is overflowing with subversive wit, brilliant observations and larger-than-life characters. This bold novel is suffused with Elizabeth Stead's unique literary style and humour.
The Sparrows of Edward Street
A wonderfully witty and entertaining retelling of a little-known yet very important period of Australia's history, this is a fictionalized account of acclaimed Australian writer Elizabeth Stead's experiences in a 1940s postwar housing commission camp. It's November 1948, and the widowed Hanora Sparrow and her teenage daughters, Aria and Rosy, have fallen on tough times; when they move into a housing commission camp on the outskirts of Sydney, their spirits are low and their prospects few. While Hanora copes via various pharmaceutical offerings and Rosy with nothing other than indignity, the spirited Aria rises immediately to the challenge of keeping the family together in such trying circumstances. With her endless curiosity and lively sense of humor, Aria draws the Sparrow women into close friendships with other camp residents and supports her family through her work as a photographic model in the city. Despite the setbacks, Aria strives toward their eventual salvation.
The Different World of Fin Starling
To enter The Different World of Fin Starling is to enter the enchantment of a fairytale for adults. Wagners Creek, otherwise known as the arse-end of the earth, is the home of the mutton-bird, the carrion crow and the remarkable Fin Starling. Son of the local provider of 'special services', Fin is different from other children and soon it becomes clear that he is something of a miracle-worker as he transforms the dirt-poor shantytown into a place of pilgrimage. Elizabeth Stead's gently comic portrait of Wagners Creek is handled with benevolent grace. Yet beneath the comedy runs an unsettling undercurrent and the suspicion that Fin's birthplace exists in the parallel universe where different laws operate.
Knitting Emily Bridget
Poor Emily Bridget. She is coming unravelled. But as fast as her limbs droop and drop, husband Elson knits another in neat eight-ply. Emily Bridget and Elson are just two of Elizabeth Stead's cast of memorable, eccentric characters.
The Fishcastle
Set in a seaside village, this novel deals with obsession, neurosis and possessiveness. The Fishcastle is a rambling house inhabited by an irresponsible father, a delinquent son and an obsessive daughter, who interact in various starnge ways with some of the inhabitants of the town.
