The Dyehouse
| Author | Mena Calthorpe |
|---|---|
| Country | Australia |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Fiction |
| Publisher | Ure Smith, Sydney |
Publication date | 1961 |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 218 pp |
| ISBN | 0868060259 |
| Preceded by | – |
| Followed by | The Defectors |
The Dyehouse (1961) is the debut novel by Australian writer Mena Calthorpe.[1]
Story outline
The novel is set in a textile dye factory in a drab Sydney industrial suburb. It follows the interacting stories of the men and women who work at the Southern Textiles Dye Work in the mid-1950s.
Critical reception
Joyce Halstead in The Australian Women's Weekly noted some shortcomings but found: "Though there is a groping for the subtleties which would make the characters more convincing, the style is simple and precise and the backgrounds are handled with freshness and skill."[2]
In The Canberra Times, the reviewer also found first novel problems but saw the worth in the end product: "She has considerable skill as a writer, her great strength appears to be story construction. When she slops fascinating herself with her own clever prose, throws away her thesaurus, and gets down lo telling a story simply, economically, and honestly she may well be a force to be reckoned with on the Australian literary scene."[3]
Notes
Text Publishing re-issued the novel in 2016 as a part of their Text Classics series.[4]