Book contents
- The Cambridge History of the Australian Novel
- The Cambridge History of the Australian Novel
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 The Global Invention of the Australian Novel
- 2 Colonial Adventure Novels
- 3 Beyond Britain and the Book
- 4 Transnational Optics
- 5 The Novel in the Late Colonial Period
- 6 Love Is Not Enough
- 7 The Australian Crime Novel, 1830–1950
- 8 The Novel Nation
- 9 Selling Australian Stories to the World
- 10 Women Writers and the Emerging Urban Novel, 1930–1952
- 11 The National Trilogy and Mining
- 12 Nation and Environment in the Twentieth-Century Novel
- 13 Henry Handel Richardson, Christina Stead and the Transnational Fiction of Provincial Development
- 14 The Mid-Century Australian Novel and the End of World History
- 15 Race, Romance and Anxiety
- 16 Whiteness, Aboriginality and Representation in the Twentieth-Century Australian Novel
- 17 When the Twain Meet
- 18 From Bunyip to Boom
- 19 Unsettling Archive
- 20 The Novel at Arms
- 21 ‘Our Least-Known Best Seller’
- 22 Writing, Women and the Australian Novel
- 23 White Lies
- 24 The Economics of the Literary Novel
- 25 Mabo, History, Sovereignty
- 26 Indigenous Futurism
- 27 The Regional Novel in Australia
- 28 Children’s and Young Adult Literature
- 29 Grunge, Nation and Literary Generations
- 30 The Making of the Asian Australian Novel
- 31 Screening the Australian Novel, 1971–2020
- 32 Australian Fantasy, Crime and Romance Fiction in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries
- 33 Uncertain Futures
- 34 A (Sovereign) Body of Work
- 35 The Novel Road to the Global South
- 36 The Fortunes of the Miles Franklin
- 37 The Arab Australian Novel
- 38 Riddling the Nation
- 39 Migrant Writing and the Invention of Australia
- Selective Bibliography: Studies of the Australian Novel, 2000–2021
- Index
23 - White Lies
Colonial Mythology and the Decolonial Impasse in the Award-Winning Novels of Roger McDonald, Kim Scott and Alex Miller
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 June 2023
- The Cambridge History of the Australian Novel
- The Cambridge History of the Australian Novel
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 The Global Invention of the Australian Novel
- 2 Colonial Adventure Novels
- 3 Beyond Britain and the Book
- 4 Transnational Optics
- 5 The Novel in the Late Colonial Period
- 6 Love Is Not Enough
- 7 The Australian Crime Novel, 1830–1950
- 8 The Novel Nation
- 9 Selling Australian Stories to the World
- 10 Women Writers and the Emerging Urban Novel, 1930–1952
- 11 The National Trilogy and Mining
- 12 Nation and Environment in the Twentieth-Century Novel
- 13 Henry Handel Richardson, Christina Stead and the Transnational Fiction of Provincial Development
- 14 The Mid-Century Australian Novel and the End of World History
- 15 Race, Romance and Anxiety
- 16 Whiteness, Aboriginality and Representation in the Twentieth-Century Australian Novel
- 17 When the Twain Meet
- 18 From Bunyip to Boom
- 19 Unsettling Archive
- 20 The Novel at Arms
- 21 ‘Our Least-Known Best Seller’
- 22 Writing, Women and the Australian Novel
- 23 White Lies
- 24 The Economics of the Literary Novel
- 25 Mabo, History, Sovereignty
- 26 Indigenous Futurism
- 27 The Regional Novel in Australia
- 28 Children’s and Young Adult Literature
- 29 Grunge, Nation and Literary Generations
- 30 The Making of the Asian Australian Novel
- 31 Screening the Australian Novel, 1971–2020
- 32 Australian Fantasy, Crime and Romance Fiction in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries
- 33 Uncertain Futures
- 34 A (Sovereign) Body of Work
- 35 The Novel Road to the Global South
- 36 The Fortunes of the Miles Franklin
- 37 The Arab Australian Novel
- 38 Riddling the Nation
- 39 Migrant Writing and the Invention of Australia
- Selective Bibliography: Studies of the Australian Novel, 2000–2021
- Index
Summary
The millennial novels of Roger McDonald, Kim Scott and Alex Miller negotiate a tension between mythology and philosophy in attempting to progressively address the pernicious neocolonial mythology of the Australian tradition. All three writers have a history of work experience in rural and regional areas outside of their literary careers: one is Australian born of British heritage, another Australian born with Indigenous heritage, the other an English born migrant. Each of them has established a significant oeuvre over the last quarter century, and each has figured consistently in national and State awards. They are writers with a substantial public reputation, who have attracted the attention of the key institutions involved in curating Australian literature, and on occasion they have exceeded those spaces in becoming a topic of conversation within a broader public sphere interested in the character of a nation and the condition of its social contracts. Each of them is also deeply involved in consideration of the Australian tradition and the mythology that has expressed its identity and purpose. In this chapter the point of interest in grouping these specific texts by these specific male writers is to enquire into the extent to which they invoke, rework and displace the neocolonial mythology of the Australian tradition with familiar narratives that nevertheless predispose a wider public to a more open and inclusive accommodation of difference.
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- Information
- The Cambridge History of the Australian Novel , pp. 386 - 404Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2023