A Dutiful Daughter: Text Classics

Introduction by Geordie Williamson

It is the duty of a good child to let his parents know the second they turn into animals.

Barbara Glover’s parents metamorphosed when she hit puberty, becoming bovine from the waist down. Fearful of her transformative powers, she tends diligently to them, keeping them like animals on the family’s remote farm and-along with her brother, Damian, who harbours incestuous longings for her-protecting their terrible secret from the world. First published in 1971, Thomas Keneally’s A Dutiful Daughter is strange and disturbing, and utterly unlike any other Australian novel.