Coda (novel)
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''Coda'' is a 1994 novel by
Australian Australian(s) may refer to: Australia * Australia, a country * Australians, citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia ** European Australians ** Anglo-Celtic Australians, Australians descended principally from British colonists ** Aboriginal Aus ...
author
Thea Astley Thea Beatrice May Astley (25 August 1925 – 17 August 2004) was an Australian novelist and short story writer. She was a prolific writer who was published for over 40 years from 1958. At the time of her death, she had won more Miles Franklin ...
.


Plot summary

The novel, a satire on old age, concerns Kathleen Hackendorf, who has reached the age when she must decide where she is going to live until the end of her days. She begins to get lost when out of her house and discovers that the government requires her house as right-of-way for a road. She calls on her children for help, but they have their own selfish lives to lead: Shamrock (Sham) is the wife of a crooked politician and overly self-obsessed, and Brian is miserably married.''Kirkus Review'', "CODA by Thea Astley"
/ref> Neither of them want anything to do with her, and pack her off to Passing Downs retirement village.Literature, Arts and Medicine Database "Astley, Thea: Coda"
/ref> Kathleen refuses to be "rendered invisible" as a result of her age and fights to maintain her dignity.


Reviews

* ''Publishers' Weekly'': "...sparks of humor provide balance, humanizing a fictional landscape that otherwise promises little hope or compassion." * ''Kirkus Review'': "A spare, sharp-boned bird of a novel, whose song is wrenchingly sad yet full of indomitable spirit...Astley is a marvelous writer and a hilarious, merciless, and poignant truth-teller."


Notes

* This novel was selected as a ''New York Times Book Review'' Notable Book of 1994: "In a shopping mall in northern Australia, the spirited, eccentric heroine of Ms. Astley's 13th novel, a kind of female Lear, contemplates her past and articulates her wrath at age and abandonment."
/ref>


References


See also

* 1994 in Australian literature 1994 Australian novels Novels by Thea Astley Heinemann (publisher) books {{1990s-novel-stub