''Five Bells'' (2011) is a novel by Australian author Gail Jones.

Plot summary

''Five Bells'' concerns four main characters who visit

Circular Quay Circular Quay is a harbour, former working port and now international passenger shipping port, public piazza and tourism precinct, heritage area, and transport node located in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia on the northern edge of the Syd ...

in Sydney on the same day: Ellie, a PhD student; James, a teacher; Catherine, an Irish woman mourning the loss of her brother; and Pei Xing, a Chinese woman.

Notes

* Epigraph: "Memory believes before knowing remembers." -

William Faulkner William Cuthbert Faulkner (; September 25, 1897 – July 6, 1962) was an American writer known for his novels and short stories set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, based on Lafayette County, Mississippi, where Faulkner spent most of ...

, ''

Light in August ''Light in August'' is a 1932 novel by the Southern American author William Faulkner. It belongs to the Southern gothic and modernist literary genres. Set in the author's present day, the interwar period, the novel centers on two strangers, a ...

'' Where have you gone? The tide is over you, The turn of midnight water's over you, As Time is over you, and mystery, And memory, the flood that does not flow. –

Kenneth Slessor Kenneth Adolphe Slessor (27 March 190130 June 1971) was an Australian poet, journalist and official war correspondent in World War II. He was one of Australia's leading poets, notable particularly for the absorption of modernist influences int ...

, " Five Bells" * "The first debt of this project is to Kenneth Slessor's elegiac poem, "Five Bells" (1939), which returned to me, like a remembered song, one midnight on a ferry in the centre of Circular Quay". (Author's acknowledgements: p. 217)

Reviews

* ''Australian Book Review'' * ''The Sydney Morning Herald''

Awards and nominations

* 2012 shortlisted Indie Awards – Fiction * 2012 shortlisted Festival Awards for Literature (SA) – Award for Fiction * 2012 shortlisted ASAL Awards –

ALS Gold Medal The Australian Literature Society Gold Medal (ALS Gold Medal) is awarded annually by the Association for the Study of Australian Literature for "an outstanding literary work in the preceding calendar year." From 1928 to 1974 it was awarded by the ...

* 2012 shortlisted

Barbara Jefferis Award The Barbara Jefferis Award is an Australian literary award prize. The award was created in 2007 after being endowed by John Hinde upon his death to commemorate his late wife, author Barbara Jefferis. It is funded by his $1 million bequest. Origin ...

"Barbara Jefferis Award Winner 2012"
/ref> * 2012

Nita Kibble Literary Award The Kibble Literary Awards comprise two awards—the Nita B Kibble Literary Award, which recognises the work of an established Australian female writer, and the Dobbie Literary Award, which is for a first published work by a female writer. The Awar ...

* 2013 longlisted

International Dublin Literary Award The International Dublin Literary Award ( ga, Duais Liteartha Idirnáisiúnta Bhaile Átha Chliath), established as the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award in 1996, is presented each year for a novel written or translated into English. ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Five Bells 2011 Australian novels Novels by Gail Jones Novels set in Sydney Vintage Books books