Astley, Thea (1925—)

Australian novelist. Born Beatrice May Astley, August 25, 1925, in Brisbane, Queensland; daughter of Cecil and Eileen (Lindsay) Astley; educated at Teachers Training College; married Edmund John (Jack) Gregson, on August 27, 1948, in Sydney; children: one son, Edmond.

Selected works:

Girl With a Monkey (1958); A Descant for Gossips (1960); A Boatload of Home Folk (1968); Hunting the Wild Pineapple (1979); Beach-masters (1985); Reaching Tin River (1990); Vanishing Points (1992); Coda (1994).

In the bush country of Australia, Thea Astley was raised in a Catholic household and a convent school. Traveling with her father Cecil Astley, a journalist with the newspaper The Queenslander, Thea became acquainted with the ruggedness of rural Australia and its amalgam of people, imagery she would later use in her writing. After attending Teachers Training College, Astley began her career in the same rural areas she had traveled as a child. For five years, she boarded at a room in the town pub or with a local family while she taught at the town school. Each year saw her in a new place, but Astley felt the lack of privacy such small places engendered. In 1948, she moved to Sydney and took a teaching position at a local high school. In the same year, she married Jack Gregson, with whom she subsequently had a son, Edmond.

Astley's work is satiric, starting with her first publications, Girl With a Monkey (1958) and A Descant for Gossips (1960). In 1968, she was invited to a post as senior tutor at Macquane University in Sydney. There, she taught English and Australian literature and continued working on short stories, novellas, and novels, which emphasized the social intricacies, hindrances, and prejudices of small-town life. In 1980, Astley retired from her post as senior tutor and moved, with Gregson, to Nowra, Queensland, a rural town 100 miles south of Sydney. They then moved further north in Queensland.

sources:

Gilbert, Pam. Coming Out From Under. London: Pandora, 1988.

Crista Martin , Boston, Massachusetts