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AbstractHistoryArchive Description
'When Delia Bennet - author and domestic advice columnist - is diagnosed with cancer, she knows it's time to get her house in order. After all, she's got to secure the future for her husband, their two daughters and their five beloved chickens. But as she writes lists and makes plans, questions both large and small creep in. Should she divulge her best culinary secrets? Read her favourite novels one last time? Plan her daughters' far-off weddings?
'Complicating her dilemma is the matter of the past, and a remote country town where she fled as a pregnant teenager, only to leave broken-hearted eight years later.
'Researching and writing her final Household Guide, Delia is forced to confront the pieces of herself she left behind. She learns what matters is not the past but the present - that the art of dying is all about truly living.' (Publisher's blurb)
Notes
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Featured by the BIG Book Club, June 2008
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Dedication: Dedicated with love to the memory of Adam Wilton and Alison McCallum.
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Other Formats
- Sound recording.
Works about this Work
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Elvis Down Under : Simulations of a US Pop Icon in Australian Fiction
2010
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Reading Across the Pacific : Australia-United States Intellectual Histories 2010; (p. 177-193) 'This paper will examine a selection of Australian fiction which features Elvis Presley, or a Presley manqué, as a character. This will include novels and short fiction by Debra Adelaide (A Household Guide to Dying), Julie Capaldo (Weather), Nick Cave (And the Ass Saw the Angel), Gail Jones ('Heartbreak Hotel') and Dorian Mode (A Cafe in Venice). The paper will investigate the capacity of a ubiquitous pop icon such as Presley to absorb and reflect socio-cultural meanings that transcend national boundaries while at the same time affirming elements of national character. In doing so it will consider the meaning and function of trans-national celebrity in a globalised world, and explore why it is that Australian authors—and readers—find a resonance in the figure of Elvis Presley that is seemingly missing from the pop-iconography of their own country.' (Author's abstract) -
Writers Go to the Dogs ... and Cats, Birds, Monkeys, Pigs
2009
single work
criticism
— Appears in: The Australian Literary Review , February vol. 4 no. 1 2009; (p. 24-25) -
[Review] The Household Guide To Dying
2008
single work
review
— Appears in: Bookseller + Publisher Magazine , Summer 2008-2009 vol. 88 no. 5 2008; (p. 22)
— Review of The Household Guide To Dying 2008 single work novel -
[Review] The Household Guide To Dying
2008
single work
review
— Appears in: The Adelaide Review , no. 342 2008; (p. 34)
— Review of The Household Guide To Dying 2008 single work novel -
Exit Strategy
2008
single work
review
— Appears in: The Courier-Mail , 5 - 6 July 2008; (p. 23)
— Review of The Household Guide To Dying 2008 single work novel
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[Review] The Household Guide To Dying
2008
single work
review
— Appears in: Bookseller + Publisher Magazine , April/May vol. 87 no. 8 2008; (p. 34)
— Review of The Household Guide To Dying 2008 single work novel -
Life, Death and Domesticity
2008
single work
review
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 24 May 2008; (p. 13)
— Review of The Household Guide To Dying 2008 single work novel -
Joke's Often Lost on the Grim Reaper
2008
single work
review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 7-8 June 2008; (p. 12-13)
— Review of The Household Guide To Dying 2008 single work novel -
Dying for House Work
2008
single work
review
— Appears in: The Age , 7 June 2008; (p. 25)
— Review of The Household Guide To Dying 2008 single work novel -
A Case of Grave Expectations
2008
single work
review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 14-15 June 2008; (p. 34-35)
— Review of The Household Guide To Dying 2008 single work novel -
Undercover
2008
single work
column
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 12-13 April 2008; (p. 26) -
One to One : Interview with Debra Adelaide
Angelo Loukakis
(interviewer),
2008
single work
interview
— Appears in: Newswrite : The NSW Writers' Centre Magazine , April no. 178 2008; (p. 5, 11) -
Dying for Answers
Deborah Crabtree
(interviewer),
2008
single work
interview
— Appears in: Bookseller + Publisher Magazine , April/May vol. 87 no. 8 2008; (p. 41) -
Dead Funny Tale
2008
single work
column
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 17-18 May 2008; (p. 26-28) -
The Art of Dying
2008
single work
column
— Appears in: The Age , 24 May 2008; (p. 26-27)
Awards
- 2010 shortlisted Randwick Award for Literature
- 2009 longlisted Women's Prize Trust Awards — Women's Prize for Fiction (UK)