Shooting Blanks at the Anzac Legend

Donna Coates was born in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. She is an Associate Professor in the English Department of the University of Calgary, Canada. She is a long-term member of the American Association of Australasian Literary Studies. She has written extensively about the responses of women from Australia, Canada, New Zealand to twentieth-century wars.

• AcknowledgementsIntroductionPart 1: World War I fictionsChapter 1: The Digger on the lofty pedestal: Australian women’s fictions of the Great WarChapter 2: “Guns ‘n’ roses”: Mollie Skinner’s intrepid Great War fictionsChapter 3: (Not) talking back: Australian women novelists lose the great (linguistic) warChapter 4: Lesbia Harford’s home-front warrior and women’s World War I writingChapter 5: Sleeping with the enemy: Patriot games in fictions by Lesbia Harford, Gwen Kelly and Joan DugdaleChapter 6: Demilitarising a military culture: Brenda Walker’s The Wing of NightPart 2: World War II fictionsChapter 7: Damn(ed) Yankees: The Pacific’s not pacific anymoreChapter 8: “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” in the film adaptation of Come in SpinnerChapter 9: Country matters in the Little (Southern Steel) CompanyChapter 10: Reality bites: The impact of World War II on the Australian home front in Maria Gardner’s Blood Stained Wattle and Robin Sheiner’s Smile, the War Is OverChapter 11: Loving thine enemies: Representations of Italian prisoners of war in contemporary Australian women’s World War II fictionsChapter 12: Lies, secrets and silences: Prisoners-of-war in World War II Australian women’s novelsChapter 13: No hell like peacetime: Going (down) under in the land of the “fair go” Chapter 14: The new “Anzacs two” make their debut in contemporary Australian women’s fictionsPart 3 The Vietnam War Chapter 15: Coming home: The return of the (Australian Vietnam War) soldierChapter 16: “All we are saying is give peace a chance”: The Vietnam war protest movement in Australian women’s fictions by Janine Burke, Patricia Cornelius, Nuri Mass and Wendy ScarfeChapter 17: ’O what a lovely war: No more shooting blanks in Helen Nolan’s Between the Battles: A NovelConclusion: Boomerangs do come backWorks citedIndex