The Dyehouse Explained

The Dyehouse
Author:Mena Calthorpe
Country:Australia
Language:English
Genre:Fiction
Publisher:Ure Smith, Sydney
Release Date:1961
Media Type:Print
Pages:218 pp
Isbn:0868060259
Preceded By:
Followed By:The Defectors

The Dyehouse (1961) is the debut novel by Australian writer Mena Calthorpe.[1]

Story outline

The novel is set in a textile dye factory in a drab Sydney industrial suburb. It follows the interacting stories of the men and women who work at the Southern Textiles Dye Work in the mid-1950s.

Critical reception

Joyce Halstead in The Australian Women's Weekly noted some shortcomings but found: "Though there is a groping for the subtleties which would make the characters more convincing, the style is simple and precise and the backgrounds are handled with freshness and skill."[2]

In The Canberra Times, the reviewer also found first novel problems but saw the worth in the end product: "She has considerable skill as a writer, her great strength appears to be story construction. When she stops fascinating herself with her own clever prose, throws away her thesaurus, and gets down to telling a story simply, economically, and honestly she may well be a force to be reckoned with on the Australian literary scene."[3]

See also

Notes

Text Publishing re-issued the novel in 2016 as a part of their Text Classics series.[4]

Notes and References

  1. Web site: The Dyehouse | AustLit: Discover Australian Stories. www.austlit.edu.au. 18 August 2024. 18 September 2020. https://web.archive.org/web/20200918201747/https://www.austlit.edu.au/austlit/page/C157082. live.
  2. Web site: "Your Bookshelf" by Joyce Halstead, The Australian Women's Weekly, 4 October 1961, p51 . 16 September 2016 . 18 August 2024 . https://web.archive.org/web/20240818175102/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/47251628 . live .
  3. Web site: "Formula Story Set In Factory Scene", The Canberra Times, 16 September 1961, p15 . 16 September 2016 . 18 August 2024 . https://web.archive.org/web/20240818175243/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/103087729 . live .
  4. Web site: The Dyehouse: Text Classics, book by Mena Calthorpe. 29 August 2016. www.textpublishing.com.au. 16 September 2016. 24 September 2016. https://web.archive.org/web/20160924132738/https://www.textpublishing.com.au/books/the-dyehouse. live.