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A review by kimbofo
Fairyland by Sumner Locke Elliott
5.0
Most people know Sumner Locke Elliott for his wonderful novel Careful, He Might Hear You, which won the Miles Franklin Literary Award that same year (and which was also adapted for television in the early 1980s), about a custody battle for a young boy in 1930s Sydney. That was a thinly veiled memoir of Locke Elliott’s own life, orphaned at a young age and raised by aunts.
Fairyland was his 11th (and last) novel. First published in 1990, it is also a thinly veiled memoir. For much of his life (he died in 1991), Locke Elliott hid his homosexuality. The book explores what it is like to grow up in the 1930s and 40s hiding your real self from the world.
It is, by turns, a heart-rending, intimate and harrowing portrayal of one man’s search for love in an atmosphere plagued by the fear of condemnation, violence, prosecution and imprisonment.
To read the rest of my review, please visit my blog.
Fairyland was his 11th (and last) novel. First published in 1990, it is also a thinly veiled memoir. For much of his life (he died in 1991), Locke Elliott hid his homosexuality. The book explores what it is like to grow up in the 1930s and 40s hiding your real self from the world.
It is, by turns, a heart-rending, intimate and harrowing portrayal of one man’s search for love in an atmosphere plagued by the fear of condemnation, violence, prosecution and imprisonment.
To read the rest of my review, please visit my blog.