Blue Skies

introduction by Danielle Wood

A young wife and mother watches a clock that seems forever stuck at three-in-the-afternoon. Her neighbour obsesses over the front lawn, and the women at the local beach chatter about knitting patterns. Her husband didn’t come home last night.

She lives for Tuesdays and Thursdays, when the baby is with Mother-in-law and she can escape to a less humdrum life. Jonathan, man about town, is Tuesday. Ben, a freethinking artist, is Thursday.

But Jonathan is in serious trouble, and Thursdays are turning sour. Very sour.

A brilliant, acerbic tale of a crack-up in stultifying suburbia, Blue Skies marked the emergence of a unique voice in Australian fiction.

Reading Group notes can be found here.

Listen to a discussion on Radio National’s The Book Show, where Jane Cameron & Danielle Wood speak about Helen’s life and work, and Peter Mares reveals that Patrick White was a Blue Skies fan.

Read Emmett Stinson’s review for Triple R’s Breakfasters.

This edition also contains a great new introduction by Danielle Wood, and we’ve included a taste of it here:

Praise for Blue Skies:

‘Blue Skies is as fresh, punchy and relevant now as it was on its release 35 years ago.’ Full review here.

The Australian

‘A strange and memorable novel, rich in short circuits, cross currents, half themes. A potent voice, then and now.’

Eva Hornung

‘Blue Skies brings forth many things, including the existential burden of an isolated life, the emotional confusion of immature motherhood, and even the spiritual shadow of Tasmania’s vanished indigenous population. Highly recommended.’

Canberra Times

‘A born writer with a style and élan which are all her own.’

Auberon Waugh

‘This novel still has a masterpiece’s power to thrill and discomfort. Text’s rerelease of this classic is a brilliant move.’

Sunday Tasmanian

‘A memorable novella—sensuous, strange, prickly as a sea-urchin.’

Nicholas Shakespeare