Passenger (Keneally novel)

Novel by Australian writer Tom Keneally

Passenger

Author| Thomas Keneally
Language| English
Genre| Fiction
Publisher| Collins, Australia

Publication date

| 1979
Publication place| Australia
Media type| Print
Pages| 186 pp
ISBN| 0002216299
Preceded by| A Victim of the Aurora
Followed by| Confederates

Passenger (1979) is a novel by Australian writer Thomas Keneally.[1]

## Abstract

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The narrator of this novel is a foetus in utero, who watches the outside world through his mother's eyes. He observes the break-up of his parents' marriage, his mother's incarceration in a mental hospital, and her eventual escape and travel to Australia, where he is born.

## Dedication

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"To Trish Sheppard and Iain Findlay".[2]

## Critical reception

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In the Canberra Times Hope Hewitt was a little annoyed with the main character: "In practice it provides a novel excuse for the oldest of narrative conventions: the omniscient narrator. It also provides for a variation on the Romantic notion of the wise child; and I confess that there were moments when the little man became so polysyllabically philosophical or his creator so cutely whimsical that I found myself wishing the brat would remain unborn...But apart from a few irritations with the conventions of the fantasy, Passenger is an entertaining book, with its constant changes of scene and its unexpected uses of language."[3]

## Publication history

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After its original publication in 1979 by Collins,[1] the novel was published as follows:

* Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, USA, 1978[2]
* Fontana, UK, 1980[4]

## See also

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* 1979 in Australian literature

## References

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1. ^ a b "Passenger (Collins 1979)". National Library of Australia. Retrieved 8 July 2023.
2. ^ a b "Austlit - Passenger by Thomas Keneally". Austlit. Retrieved 8 July 2023.
3. ^ ""Vision from the womb"". The Canberra Times, 2 June 1979, p16. Retrieved 8 July 2023.
4. ^ "Passenger (Fontana)". National Library of Australia. Retrieved 6 July 2023.

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Novels by Thomas Keneally

* The Place at Whitton (1964)
* The Fear (1965)
* Bring Larks and Heroes (1967)
* Three Cheers for the Paraclete (1968)
* The Survivor (1969)
* A Dutiful Daughter (1971)
* The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (1972)
* Blood Red, Sister Rose (1974)
* Moses the Lawgiver (1975)
* Gossip from the Forest (1975)
* Season in Purgatory (1976)
* A Victim of the Aurora (1977)
* Passenger (1979)
* Confederates (1979)
* The Cut-Rate Kingdom (1980)
* Schindler's Ark (1982)
* A Family Madness (1985)
* The Playmaker (1987)
* Act of Grace (1988)
* By the Line (1989)
* Towards Asmara (1989)
* Flying Hero Class (1991)
* Chief of Staff (1991)
* Woman of the Inner Sea (1992)
* Jacko (1993)
* A River Town (1995)
* Bettany's Book (2000)
* An Angel in Australia (2000)
* The Tyrant's Novel (2003)
* The Widow and Her Hero (2007)
* The People's Train (2009)
* The Daughters of Mars (2012)
* Shame and the Captives (2014)
* Napoleon's Last Island (2015)
* Crimes of the Father (2016)
* The Soldier's Curse (2016)
* The Unmourned (2017)
* The Power Game (2018)
* Two Old Men Dying (2018)
* The Ink Stain (2019)
* The Dickens Boy (2020)
* Corporal Hitler's Pistol (2021)
* Fanatic Heart (2022)

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