The art in fiction: Thomas Keneally

Abstract

The article picks up references to novelist Thomas Keneally’s interest in painting and tracks his uses of artists and painting in selected fiction. Visual art supplies style and thematic depth to Bring Larks and Heroes, is integral to the complexity underpinning the murder-mystery of A Victim of the Aurora, allows narrative perspective and structural coherence in Confederates, and connects with elements in The Daughters of Mars that echo the novelist’s positioning of his work across both Europe and Australia, and between commercial and literary fiction.