The Slow Natives

The Slow Natives

First edition
Author	Thea Astley
Country	Australia
Language	English
Publisher	Angus and Robertson
Publication date	1965
Media type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages	210

The Slow Natives (1965) is a Miles Franklin Award-winning novel^[1] by Australian author Thea Astley, the second of her record number of four wins. It also won the 1965 Moomba Award.

Plot summary[]

Set in sub-tropical Queensland, the novel examines the relationships between suburban Brisbanites including a priest, nuns and a couple and their teenage son.

Style and themes[]

The novel represents a departure for Astley from her earlier novels in that rather than focusing on one or two particular characters, she moves "freely among a group, switching attention omnisciently from one to another. Almost all the characters suffer from some form of spiritual aridity; in Astley's vision, there often seems nothing between repression, and empty or even corrupt sexuality".^[2]

Astley's characters in this novel often only realise their failings after disaster has beset them. The father, for example, only realises after his teenage son has lost his leg in a "joy-riding accident", that he has "failed to give his son 'the sort of discipline ... [he] wanted more than anything in the world'."^[3]

Notes[]

References[]

• Clancy, Laurie Thea Astley Biography: Thea Astley comments
• Middlemiss.org
• Taylor, Cheryl and Perkins, Elizabeth (2007) "Warm words: North Queensland writing" in Patrick Buckridge and Elizabeth McKay (ed.) By the Book: A Literary History of Queensland, St Lucia, University of Queensland Press

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