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Isobel on the Way to the Corner Shop

Isobel on the Way to the Corner Shop: Text Classics

Text Classics

Amy Witting

  • awardWinner, Age Book of the Year, 2000
  • Introduction by Maria Takolander

    Isobel Callaghan is struggling to make a career as a writer in Sydney. She is isolated, poor and hungry, and fears she’s going mad. Leaving her room in a boarding house in search of food, she has a breakdown on the way to the corner shop.

    Waking in hospital, Isobel learns that she will be confined to a sanatorium in the Blue Mountains. There, among the motley assortment of patients, and with the aid of great works of literature, she will confront the horrors of her past. But can she find a way to face the future?

    Confronting and compassionate, profound and funny, the second Isobel Callaghan novel is every bit as brilliant as its much-loved predecessor. It confirmed Amy Witting as one of the finest Australian writers of her time. 

    Amy Witting
    About the Author

    Amy Witting was born in Annandale, an inner suburb of Sydney, in 1918. She attended Sydney University, then taught French and English in state schools. Beginning late in life she published six novels, including The Visit, I for Isobel, Isobel on the Way to the Corner Shop and Maria’s War; two collections of short stories; two books of verse, ...

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    Maria Takolander
    About the Introducer

    Maria Takolander is a senior lecturer in literature at Deakin University in Geelong. She is the author of a work of literary criticism and two poetry collections. Her poems have featured in annual best-of anthologies for the past seven years. This is her first book of fiction.

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    Extent:
    336pp
    Format:
    Paperback
    Text publication date:
    25 February 2015
    First published:
    1999
    Region:
    NSW
    ISBN:
    9781922182715
    AU Price:
    $14.95
    NZ Price:
    $17.99
    Australian
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    Praise for Amy Witting
    andIsobel on the Way to the Corner Shop

    ‘Her reflections on human nature are eloquently drawn, intimate, compassionate and witty.’

    ‘Amy Witting is comparable to Jean Rhys, but she has more starch, or vinegar. The effect is bracing.' 

    ‘[Witting] lays bare with surgical precision the dynamics of families, sibling, students in coffee shops, office coteries. One sometimes feels positively winded with unsettling insights. There is something relentless, almost unnerving in her anatomising of foibles, fears obsessions, private shame, the nature of loneliness, the nature of panic.' 

    ‘A beautifully but unobtrusively honed style, a marvellous ear for dialogue, a generous understanding of the complex waywardness of men and women.’

    ‘Sparkling prose and extraordinary ability to enter the minds of a wide variety of characters.' 

    ‘Quietly brilliant…Witting’s characterizations are staggeringly sharp—it is hard to imagine a novel more keenly observed—simultaneously heartbreaking and (subtly) hilarious, not because they’re exaggerated, but because they are so unsettlingly, overwhelmingly true…A compassionate masterpiece.’

    Other editions ofIsobel on the Way to the Corner Shop
    • Isobel on the Way to the Corner Shop
      ebook
      ISBN: 9781925095647
      25 February 2015
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