Homesickness: A Novel

The Story

The wildly funny novel-never published before in the United States-that put Murray Bail on the literary map. Thirteen men and women on a package tour travel the world, visiting museums, hotels, and shops. They are like tourists anywhere, except that wherever they go-Africa, England, South America, New York, or Russia-they find nothing is as it seems. Challenged by unexpected propositions, differences, and subtleties of life and history, Murray Bail's tourists are in turn repelled, attracted, altered. As the Nobel laureate Patrick White put it, Homesickness, with its 'tourists permanently traipsing through the museums of their own obsessions,' is the work of 'a visual writer with great understanding of sensual man.' It is surely one of the most distinctive, original Australian novels of recent times. Murray Bail was born in Adelaide, Australia, in 1941. His novels--'Eucalyptus,' 'Homesickness,' and 'Holden's Performance'--have been prizewinners in Australia; 'Eucalyptus 'also won the Commonwealth Writers Prize. He lives in Syndey.Thirteen men and women on a package tour travel the world, visiting museums, hotels, and shops. They are like tourists anywhere, except that wherever they go--Africa, England, South America, New York, or Russia--they find nothing is as it seems. Challenged by unexpected propositions, differences, and subtleties of life and history, Murray Bail's tourists are in turn repelled, attracted, altered. As the Nobel laureate Patrick White put it, 'Homesickness,' with its 'tourists permanently traipsing through the museums of their own obsessions,' is the work of 'a visual writer with great understanding of sensual man.' It is one of the most distinctive, original Australian novels of recent times. 'There are numerous pleasures to be picked up by the connoisseur of smart writing. Bail has a pithy turn of phrase. He is particularly good when he applies it to place, whose quiddity he is capable of catching in a single verbal snapshot.'--John Sutherland, 'The New York Times Book Review' ''Homesickness' revealed Bail as a prickly and extravagant comedian, and its portrait of a young country trying overearnestly to connect with its Old World heritage was as poignant as it was humorous.'--Michael Upchurch, 'The New York Times Book Review'