THE SHIFTING CITY: A STUDY OF CONTEMPORARY FICTIONAL REPRESENTATIONS OF MELBOURNE’S INNER AND OUTER SUBURBAN SPACES Penny Holliday Master of Arts 2008 Principal Supervisor: Dr Lesley Hawkes Associate Supervisor: Dr Vivienne Muller Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Creative Writing and Literary Studies Faculty of Creative Industries Queensland University of Technology 2017 Keywords Melbourne, suburbs, Australian literature, Soja, Thirdspace, spatial justice, Tsiolkas, Carroll, Hartnett, Macauley, de Certeau, UNESCO Literary Cities Network, cultural geography Abstract This project explores the complexity of Melbourne’s inner and outer suburban spaces as portrayed within contemporary fiction set in Melbourne. The study is comprised of a textual analysis of the works of several key Melbourne writers whose writings over the past decade have featured their city’s inner and outer suburbs as significant sites in the exploration of the relationship between identity and place. They play an important part in my contention in this thesis that Melbourne, as a city of suburbs, is a paradigm worthy of writerly and critical attention. The fictional texts are Christos Tsiolkas’s The Slap (2008), Sonya Hartnett’s Butterfly (2009), Steven Carroll’s novel The Time We Have Taken (2007) from The Glenroy Series (2001-2011) and Wayne Macauley’s novel Blueprints for a Barbed-Wire Canoe (2004). The research question identifies the focus in this thesis on suburban Melbourne: What do contemporary fictional representations of Melbourne’s inner and outer suburban spaces reveal about the practices of everyday life when examined within a spatial justice (Soja 2010) and Thirdspace framework (Soja 1996) Table of Contents Keywords .......................................................................................................................................... 2 Abstract ............................................................................................................................................ 3 Table of Contents .............................................................................................................................. 4 List of Abbreviations ......................................................................................................................... 5 Statement of Original Authorship ...................................................................................................... 6 Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................................... 7 Chapter 1 Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 9 Chapter 2 Literature and Contextual Overview ................................................................................. 32 Chapter 3 Theoretical Frameworks .................................................................................................. 60 Chapter 4 The Time We Have Taken ............................................................................................... 76 Chapter 5 Butterfly ........................................................................................................................ 102 Chapter 6 The Slap ........................................................................................................................ 137 Chapter 7 Blueprints for a Barbed Wire Canoe ............................................................................... 166 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................... 192 Bibliography ................................................................................................................................. 200 Appendices ................................................................................................................................... 218 List of Abbreviations TTWHT: The Time We Have Taken BPFABWC: Blueprints For A Barbed Wire Canoe UNESCO: United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation CBD: Central Business District Statement of Original Authorship The work contained in this thesis has not been previously submitted to meet requirements for an award at this or any other higher education institution. To the best of my knowledge and belief, the thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due reference is made. Signature: QUT Verified Signature Date: January 2017 Acknowledgements This thesis would not have been possible without the support and encouragement of many people. First, I would like to thank QUT Creative Industries for providing me with an Australian Postgraduate Award Scholarship for the study of this degree. I am also appreciative of the opportunities provided by QUT Creative Industries to attend conferences both nationally and internationally and for the assistance of a Grant-In-Aid travel allowance. Assistance from the Higher Degree Research team was always prompt and delivered with a smile. During my research I was also a member of the Creative Industries Faculty Academic Board in the capacity of Postgraduate Student Representative and Sessional Staff Representative, which was a fantastic learning experience. I would like to acknowledge and thank Professor Brad Haseman, who originally provided me with the opportunity to study at QUT and who is now retiring as I complete my PhD journey. My supervisors, Dr Lesley Hawkes and Adjunct Professor Vivienne Muller, provided me with supervision that was consistently underpinned by excellence, professionalism and a belief in my ideas. Lesley was my primary supervisor for the last two years of this degree and I thank her for her generosity and patience. Vivienne has been a mentor and friend to me for over 20 years since she hired me for my first tutoring job at Carseldine. I could not have asked for a worthier mentor. I would also like to thank Professor Sharyn Pearce for the teaching opportunities she provided and for her ongoing support. To the Creative Writing and Literary Studies staff, thank you for your ongoing encouragement. To my office buddies, you are a quirky and talented group of people who have been like family to me: Jarryd Luke, Sandra Phillips, Ariella Van Luyn, Liz Ellison, Sasha Mackay, Kate Cantrell, Lee McGowan, Sarah Kanake, Chris Przewloka, Laura Elvery, Mark Piccini, Jo Hartmann, Mirandi Riwoe, Belinda Eslick and Emma Doolan. Thank you to my beautiful “sisters”: Katie, Mairead and Liz, my parents Bridget and Kevin, and my niece Bell. Special thanks to Dad, who lit the fire for a lifelong love of reading and learning. Dan, Ryan and Joe, this is for you with all the love in the world. Professional editor, Diane Josey provided copyediting and proofreading services, according to the guidelines laid out in the university-endorsed national ‘Guidelines for editing research theses’. Chapter 1 Introduction Research question: What do contemporary fictional representations of Melbourne’s inner and outer suburban spaces reveal about the practices of everyday life when examined within a spatial justice (Soja 2010) and Thirdspace framework? (Soja 1996). The Shifting City: Representations of Melbourne in Contemporary Narratives Melbourne’s white history since the days of settlement suggests that it has always been a conglomerate of urban and suburban spaces organised variously as Melbourne grew around wealth, class, industry, work and ethnic groupings following successive waves of migration. Michel de Certeau’s idea of the concept city is applied to my study of Melbourne as it fits well with my perception of the planned city of Melbourne as also consisting of a hidden or ‘real’ city. The sentiment of de Certeau’s idea of the city is expressed by author Jenny Sinclair in her book When we think about Melbourne: The imagination of a city (2010): In one square of a blue-edged Melways map is enough human experience and history for a lifetime’s or world’s worth of study and understanding: the trees and bush that once grew from the land, the animals that lived there, the thousands of years of indigenous occupation … Add in the years of Melbourne’s expansion, the cutting down of the trees, the paving of the roads and the little lives lived in each house, even for the mere 150 or so years the suburbs have been spreading out; multiply that by the possible ways of looking at those people - … there is too much in even that small block of land for any one person to process (Sinclair 2010, p. 26). Melbourne’s status as the one-time capital of Australia and its development as a site of cultural and artistic activity consolidated when, in 2009, it was declared UNESCO’s second literary city, which promoted an exclusive and unified image of the city. Such a construction tends to invalidate other spaces of diversity and the everyday lives lived in suburban spaces away from the city precincts. While this is a significant boost to the city in terms of its Chapter 1 Introduction 9 literary status, especially on a world stage, there is also the risk of setting up a particular boundary. The UNESCO Literary City tag potentially, could exclude the suburbs that surround the city of Melbourne as it doesn’t take into account the suburbs that surround it. Also, there is a rich literary heritage of writing about Melbourne suburbs from myriad voices through poetry, prose and plays. However given the