The Slow Natives

The Slow Natives

File:Slow Natives book cover.jpg First edition
Author	Thea Astley
Country	Australia
Language	English
Publisher	Angus and Robertson
Publication date	1965
Media type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages	210
Preceded by	The Well Dressed Explorer
Followed by	A Boat Load of Home Folk

The Slow Natives (1965) is a Miles Franklin Award winning novel by Australian author Thea Astley, the first 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".

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'."

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

Awards and achievements
Preceded by My Brother Jack	Miles Franklin Award recipient 1965	Succeeded by Trap