'Tales of a Garrison Town'; Resembling and reassembling the Australian ensemble home-front novel of World War II

Melanie A Myers

doi:10.25907/00620

The following Doctor of Creative Arts dissertation, 'Tales of a Garrison Town': Resembling and reassembling the Australian ensemble home-front novel of World War II, comprised of thesis by creative artefact and accompanying exegesis. William Hatherell (2007) categorises the home-front novel of World War II as a subgenre of Australian War literature. More specifically, within this subgenre, are what he calls the 'ensemble novels'. These include the classic Come in Spinner (1951) by Dymphna Cusack and Florence James, Soldiers' Women (1961) by Xavier Herbert and the Brisbane-set Time Out for Living (1995) by Estelle Pinney. The 'ensemble' in each case comprises of a group of white, heterosexual women, whose differences and intertwining plot trajectories are contrasted and played out along the lines age, class and marital status. The intention of each novel is to detail, according to the authors' gendered standpoints, the social disruption of an Australian city in wartime, including the impact brought about by the 'friendly invasion' of American servicemen during World War II. Predominant themes and discourses are the challenging of traditional gender roles, and issues related to women's sexuality and work. The Literature Review component of the exegesis begins with an examination of the discourses concerning the historiography of the Brisbane home front of World War II that directly informed the creation of the artefact. The second section is a feminist reading and comparative textual content analysis of the same concerns and discourses as presented in the traditional ensemble home-front novel. The third section explores the memorialisation, collection and packaging of individual memories of the home front as they relate to notions of collective memory, and the role of fictional discourses of the home front within collective memory. The thesis by creative narrative artefact, 'Tales of a Garrison Town', is a contemporary and self-conscious 'reassembling' of the ensemble home-front novel-what Linda Hutcheon (1988) termed 'historiographic metafiction'-which, via self-reflexivity and intertextuality, pays homage to this distinct category of war literature as its precedent. Beginning with Taylor's (1983: 6) premise that, 'In no other Australian city [Brisbane] was the reaction to the uncontrollable forces and rapid impact of the invasion of the American forces as completely and keenly felt', 'Tales of a Garrison Town' re-imagines (and reassembles) the Brisbane home front as a site of historical and narrative contestation, entwining discourses of gendered resistance, the representation of women, place, collective memory, nostalgia, as well as concerning itself with 'the appropriation, revision, and transmission of history' (Nünning 2004: 364). While problematising the boundary between fiction and 'the real' (Nicol 2009), the creative artefact also explores the inherent subjectivities and distortions the metahistorical novel presents when revising history in a way we can come to terms with in the present (Nünning 2004). The final chapter of the exegesis is an explication of how particular devices and techniques associated with the literary genre of historiographic metafiction were applied in the creation of the artefact-that is, a discussion of the ways in which 'Tales of a Garrison Town' both 'resembles' and 'reassembles' the ensemble home-front novel. The chapter concludes with some practice-led insights arising from the research design and methodology and some suggestions for further research.

'Tales of a Garrison Town'; Resembling and reassembling the Australian ensemble home-front novel of World War II

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