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Lilian's Story
Lilian's Story | Kate Grenville
5 posts | 6 read | 3 to read
Shielded from emotional and physical abuse by layers of fat, Lilian struggles to escape a suffocating existence in the home of her tyrannical Victorian father and her elegant but ineffectual mother. Madness, cruelty and sexuality permeate the family's upper-crust Australian world. Lilian Una Singer starts life at the beginning of the twentieth century as the daughter of a prosperous middle-class Australian family. She ends it as a cheerfully eccentric bag-lady living on the streets, quoting Shakespeare. This book traces the progress of her life's journey, and why she made the choices she did. She's a person large in spirit as well as body, who wants to invent her own story, rather than allow it to be invented for her. Life presents her with many obstacles including the sinister advances of her father, but in spite of this she succeeds. Triumphantly she makes her life her own, savouring every moment with the reminder that 'everything matters'.
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Teresereading
Lilian's Story | Kate Grenville
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Eggs Perfect🫶🏻 3mo
13 likes1 comment
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MrsMalaprop
Lilian's Story | Kate Grenville
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“‘Brilliant but unstable‘, he said again, and I pictured myself as a spluttering, green firework.”

Oh Lillian 🥰😢❤️. What a debut for Kate Grenville. I found this challenging to comprehend at times & wonder whether it was intentional, in that it depicts the mind of Lillian, the first person narrator 🤔.

I‘m pleased to have read this 1984 #Australianclassic that I borrowed from my mum‘s shelves many years ago. 🙏🏻 #ozfiction

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MrsMalaprop
Lilian's Story | Kate Grenville
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At the start of two weeks of holidays 👏🏻 I‘m making a start on this Australian classic that‘s been on my shelf for years. I‘m interested in my recent (unconscious) choice of material exploring female characters with significant mental health difficulties 🤔.

I also see it won the 1984 Vogel Award & I recently read this year‘s winner, Now That I See You.

#currentlyreading #ozfiction #serendipity

Freespirit I shall be looking forward to your review! 3y
35 likes1 comment
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TheBookKeeper
Lilian's Story | Kate Grenville
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"Anyone can be lovely, but you are rare. "
Lilian's Story Kate Grenville

#kategrenville #liliansstory #australianfiction

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EnidBiteEm
Lilian's Story | Kate Grenville
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In the 1950s, Bea Miles, a 'huge, loud, uninhibited, and eccentric bag lady' (as described by Grenville) used to charge sixpence to quote any piece from Shakespeare you wished to hear, and was the bane of Sydney taxi drivers everywhere (often refusing to pay, and trashing a cab or two if they turned aggro). Lilian's Story is very loosely inspired by Bea's life - like Bea, Lilian is well-read, from a middle upper-class family and is homeless.

Marchpane Ruth Cracknell ❤️❤️❤️ 8y
EnidBiteEm @Marchpane Perfect casting 😀. I think Ruth Cracknell would have to be one of the few people to make a movie tie-in edition totally acceptable 8y
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Joanne1 Read this a few years ago, intriguing. 8y
Sue What @Marchpane said - all the love for Ruth Cracknell 8y
EnidBiteEm @Joanne1 I really liked the structure- all those little stories that revealed the big picture. @Sue She really was just wonderful, wasn't she? RIP Ruth. 8y
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