The Electrical Experience

Description

T. George McDowell believes in getting the job done. 'I do not care for words in top hats. I believe in shirt-sleeve words. I believe in getting the job done. We're like that on the coast.' T. George McDowell, a manufacturer of soft drinks on the south coast of New South Wales, prides himself on extolling the virtues of progress. He is a Rotarian and exponent of wireless, refrigeration and electricity. He is a Realist and a Rationalist - a 'fair man but hard as nails' according to his staff - but trouble in the shape of his youngest daughter, Terri, tests his values and beliefs, and he finds that his own sexual longings begin to intrude in his dreams. First published in 1974, The Electrical Experience is an at times humorous examination of the Australian soul, and won the National Book Council Award for Fiction.

Frank Moorhouse was born in the coastal town of Nowra. He worked as an editor of small-town newspapers and as an administrator but in the 1970s became a full-time writer. He has written twelve books of fiction and one non-fiction book. He has won a number of literary prizes including the Australian Literature Society's Gold Medal for 1989. FORTY-SEVENTEEN was given a laudatory full-page review by Angela Carter in the New York Times and was named Book of the Year by The Age and 'moral winner' of the Booker Prize by the London magazine Blitz. GRAND DAYS, the first of the Palais des Nations novels, won the SA Premier's Award for Fiction. DARK PALACE won the 2001 Miles Franklin Literary Award and was shortlisted for the NSW Premier's Literary Award, the Victorian Premier's Literary Award and the Age Book of the Year Award.