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As a shy and unfriended child, Vinny is shunned and misunderstood by the students and adults living in the town. Her life, as it is, is bearable, but when she is kissed by a local boy after the school dance, girls in her class seek to hurt her in ways that have nothing to do with truth and everything
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At the same time, teacher Mrs
Striebel and English teacher Moller are beginning a tentative and careful love affair. In a country town, where rumour becomes truth, gossip is the primary conversation and small-minded meanness predominates, the two teachers, while understanding the place, do not fully
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In this period of
Australian history, small-minded malevolent behaviour is the norm. The teachers find themselves maligned at every turn and have no avenue of appeal to truth and common sense. Within a short while, the head master of the school decides to move Mrs Striebel to another school. In its
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was impressed: "This gifted writer has drawn with a scholar's touch a sensitive and intense study in human emotions played out against the cruel pettiness of a small town community. The dusty
Queensland tropical background, so well described, is significant, but remains unobtrusively incidental to
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The novel focuses on the cruel pettiness of a small town country community as it is experienced by Vinny, Helen
Striebel and English teacher Moller. The dusty Queensland tropical background and small town meanness are significant but secondary to the main themes of desired love and a lack of
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In a dusty
Queensland country town young Vinny Lalor is bullied by her fellow students at the local high school. Her teacher, Helen Striebel, is the only one to show Vinny any support and when the teacher is involved in a scandal with a fellow male teacher, Vinny is again hurt.
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Despite the teachers' endeavours to keep their love affair private, a group of students from Vinny's school decide to 'stick the knife in', putting lewd and suggestive comments in public places around the town and in the school.
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intellectual stimuli. It affects every aspect of the town and the lives of the people, but specifically, in this novel, anyone who is different or who speaks out. The main characters are marginalised in every possible way.
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Mrs
Striebel senses, rather than knows, that Vinny struggles with her life as defined by the town. Vinny's lack of knowledge and her small town surroundings ensure she has no understanding about how life really should be.
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The adult gossips have a field day, ensuring the whole town hears of the scandalous behaviour of Mrs
Striebel and Moller, who have fallen in love (despite Moller's wife being terminally ill and living elsewhere).
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worst form, this speaks of the male 'sowing his wild oats' as the woman is cast as a tart. Vinny finds herself to be the only person in the town who wants to protect Mrs
Striebel.
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Vinny, as an immature thirteen year old, has a crush on her teacher Mrs
Striebel. The relationship seems to be the only thing of value in Vinny's life.
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the main theme. An excellent and important new novel."
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279:"Your Bookshelf" by Joyce Halstead,
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449:The Multiple Effects of Rainshadow
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510:Novels by Thea Astley
361:A Descant for Gossips
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90:Australia
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49:Language
294:IMDB -
264:12 July
53:English
485:(1997)
479:(1979)
460:(1999)
452:(1996)
444:(1994)
436:(1992)
428:(1990)
420:(1985)
412:(1982)
404:(1974)
396:(1972)
388:(1968)
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345:Novels
298:(1983)
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39:Author
106:263pp
103:Pages
98:Print
59:Genre
441:Coda
266:2023
82:1960
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