Oceana Fine

Oceana Fine

First edition
Author	Tom Flood
Language	English
Publisher	Allen & Unwin, Australia
Publication date	1989
Publication place	Australia
Media type	Paperback
Pages	261 pp
ISBN	0-04-910111-0
OCLC	21834255
Dewey Decimal	823 20
LC Class	PR9619.3.F535 O27 1989

Oceana Fine is a 1990 Miles Franklin Award-winning novel by Australian author Tom Flood.[1]

Synopsis

Finn Taylor is a university student who goes to work on a Western Australian wheat silo during his summer holidays. Beneath the land lie unused mine shafts, and above, the wheat silos. This novel is part mystery, part psychological thriller and part fantasy as it follows the rises and falls of a faming family.

Awards

• Australian/Vogel Literary Award, 1988
• Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Fiction, 1990
• Miles Franklin Literary Award, 1990[2]

Critical reception

Marian Eldridge in The Canberra Times notes that the novel "takes on the soaring characteristics of magic realism as Flood seeks to create myth through evocation of landscape, family histories, legend ("wheat babies", what a lovely addition to our folklore), and through memory. There is a youthful sexual encounter that, upon its retelling - or reliving - or beginning afresh - has subtly changed as the narrator has changed. Time rolls forward, then, like a change of wind across a wheatfield, rolls back again."[3]

References

1. "Austlit - Oceana Fine". Austlit. Retrieved 9 July 2023.
2. ""Second major prize for book"". The Canberra Times, 22 June 1990, p16. Retrieved 9 July 2023.
3. ""Few faltering notes from Goldsworthy"". The Canberra Times, 25 November 1989, p4. Retrieved 9 July 2023.