Hammers Over the Anvil

(Paperback)

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Description

Alan Marshall grew up observing and recording life in a Victorian country town, writing about it with humour and compassion.

In this collection of short stories we watch the young Alan growing up in country Turalla. Crippled by polio at an early age, he has to use crutches, knowing that he'll never be able to pursue his great love-horse-riding. His disability does not stop the young boy from roaming the countryside with his mate Joe, however, all the time scribbling in his notebook about the intriguing lives of the people he meets, and trying to make sense of the world around him.

Author Bio

A writer with an ear for the rhythms of Australian speech, Melbourne-based Alan Marshall published in the dominant social realist tradition of the 1940s and '50s. The author of short stories, journalism, children's books, novels and advice columns, he is best remembered for the first book of his autobiography, I Can Jump Puddles (1955). His work is marked by a deep interest in rural and working-class life, with an emphasis on shared experience.