These two first novels join the rapidly increasing library of fine and varied fiction being written by Australian women. Pairing them in this review is entirely fortuitous, and it is always possible to construct a comparison between any two books with a little ingenuity. I would want to stress the contrasting ways in which these authors explore very different aspects of female experience. However, at this juncture I am also particularly conscious of the doubtful position a male reviewer takes when he wishes to praise women’s fiction in this way. It is one thing for men imbued with a dash of new consciousness to recognise the positive examination of women’s lives in fiction; it is quite another for them to hold it up to (masculine) judgement. Despite the passage of virtually a generation, I’m uncomfortably aware, as I write this, of some remarks made by Mary Ellmann in Thinking about Women:
Rain in the Distance by Suzanne Falkiner
Penguin, $7.95 pb, 162 pp
Tilly’s Fortunes by Helen Asher
Penguin Books, $6.95 pb, 149 pp
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