Moving Among Strangers: Randolph Stow and My Family - Gabrielle Carey

Judges'Comments

This tale about friendship, love and loss is unified around Gabrielle Carey’s interest in researching the life and work of Randolph Stow. Her mother, Joan, who knew Stow, was so private about her past that the daughter had to begin this companion volume to the earlier The Waiting Room from scratch. With a few letters as her starting point, she unravels a network of connections and revelations that resurrect a fascinating patchwork of family history.

Part biography, part literary analysis, the writing is also very personal, reflecting curiosity and sensitivity.  The book has narrative intensity and is a charming reflection on the process of writing the biography of people no longer living. Stow writes about silence and despite his correspondence with Carey remained reticent on many issues. 

There is a tender artistry in the way Carey has managed to recover ‘missing pages’, as she puts it, from her family’s past and simultaneously explore both Stow’s fiction and the country or culture he was compelled to disown. Moving Among Strangers is a little masterwork.

About the Author

Gabrielle Carey is the author of novels, biography, autobiography, essays, articles and short stories. She teaches writing at the University of Technology, Sydney, where her infatuation with Randolph Stow is happily tolerated. In addition to Moving Among Strangers her most recent book was the memoir, The Waiting Room (2009).