Big selling Australian novels in US

Helix · May 31, 2014

Ooh! My first new thread.

Which Australian-set novels -- that is, novels in which the story takes place largely/wholly in Australia -- have been big sellers in the US?

I was trying to think of the ones that had sold well on the other side of the Pacific and all I could come up with were The Thorn Birds, On the Beach, and Tomorrow, When the World Began. (I'm not even sure how big those were in the US -- I'm making assumptions.) I'd also include Mutant Message Down Under, although it's set in a highly dubious version of Australia. There must be more.

Any suggestions?

Brightdreamer · May 31, 2014

Justine Larbalestier's Magic or Madness trilogy was fairly popular, IRRC; the MC comes from Australia, though she visits New York City via a magic portal in the first book. (I didn't care for it, personally, so I don't know where she ended up in the next two.)

I keep thinking I've seen others, but I'm drawing a blank right now...

blacbird · May 31, 2014

Patrick White won a Novel Prize in Literature, so his novels continue to be backlist sellers. Personally, I find him close to unreadable.

The best-selling Australian writer I can think of wasn't a novelist, but a non-fiction writer: popular historian Alan Moorehead. He hit hugely in the U.S. back in the 1960s with his history of the search for the source of the Nile River, titled The White Nile. The sequel, The Blue Nile, did equally well. He was a fine writer with a talent for bringing historical events to vivid life, and my favorite among his books is his history of the ill-fated Burke and Wills expedtion to cross the unkown interior of Australia around 1860, titled Cooper's Creek. Much of Moorehead's work reads like good novels.

caw

Helix · May 31, 2014

Thanks, Brightdreamer! I hadn't thought of Justine Larbalestier.

blacbird · May 31, 2014

Addendum to my preceding post: On the Beach (and other novels of Nevil Shute) and the Thorn Birds were big best-sellers in the U.S.

caw

Helix · May 31, 2014

I'm not a great Patrick White reader, either, blacbird.

For non-fic, I'd imagine Robert Hughes would also be a big seller overseas -- esp. Shock of the New. Germaine Greer too.

eyeblink · May 31, 2014

blacbird said:
Patrick White won a Novel Prize in Literature, so his novels continue to be backlist sellers. Personally, I find him close to unreadable.

I don't! I've read most of his novels, some of them more than once.

Tomorrow, When the War Began was certainly published in the US - I have an American edition of it, with a glossary of Australian expressions added. Its sequels too, though I have the glossary-less UK editions of those. Also in YA, Garth Nix is certainly published in the US.

In SF, Greg Egan. In fantasy, Kim Wilkins and the late Sara Douglass,

In literary fiction, Peter Carey, who is now US-resident.

These are all published in America - don't have sales figures though.

Helix · May 31, 2014

Thanks, Eyeblink! What I'm looking for is books set in Australia that have sold well in the US, which would exclude a few of the SF/F authors. (Not from the selling well bit, but from the setting bit.)

LJD · Jun 1, 2014

Recently, I believe The Rosie Project has done pretty well.

RightHoJeeves · Jun 1, 2014

The Book Thief did very well, but that wasn't set in Australia.

I seem to remember reading that True History of the Kelly Gang did pretty well in the US. Apparently they marketed it as a "great American novel", despite it being about an Irish-Australian outlaw. Go figure

RightHoJeeves · Jun 1, 2014

Also, Mystery of the Hansom Cab (1886) sold something like 500,000 copies across Britain and the US.

Cathy C · Jun 1, 2014

Most of Keri Arthur's Urban Fantasy books are set in and around Melbourne, where she was raised. She's made both the NYT and USAT lists, so I'd say they sell well.

ajaye · Jun 1, 2014

How did Norman Lindsay's The Magic Pudding go overseas?

Helix · Jun 1, 2014

RightHoJeeves said:
The Book Thief did very well, but that wasn't set in Australia.

I seem to remember reading that True History of the Kelly Gang did pretty well in the US. Apparently they marketed it as a "great American novel", despite it being about an Irish-Australian outlaw. Go figure

Seems like an odd marketing strategy! Still I guess there's something universal about the outlaw figure -- with or without improvised armour. (I must revisit Glenrowan to take in the wonder that is the Giant Ned Kelly.)

And Fergus Hume's Hansom Cab -- another one I hadn't considered.

Thanks!

Helix · Jun 1, 2014

Cathy C said:
Most of Keri Arthur's Urban Fantasy books are set in and around Melbourne, where she was raised. She's made both the NYT and USAT lists, so I'd say they sell well.

Excellent! Keri Arthur's a new author to me.

Helix · Jun 1, 2014

ajaye said:
How did Norman Lindsay's The Magic Pudding go overseas?

Everyone should read about that cantankerous old Magic Pudding! I see that it's been republished in the US as part of the New York Review of Books Children's Collection.

Brightdreamer · Jun 1, 2014

Helix said:
Seems like an odd marketing strategy! Still I guess there's something universal about the outlaw figure ...

From my admittedly-highly-limited experience (bits and drabs gleaned from old songs, movies like Man from Snowy River, and such), there was a lot of similarity between frontier Australia and the American Old West, which may explain the heavy crossover interest. Deserts, cattle, horsemen, wide-open spaces, rough frontier law... except for every other animal being deadly poisonous, Oz could almost have been up the road from Tombstone.

LA*78 · Jun 1, 2014

Have any of the ones Bryce Courtenay set in Australia been big in the US?

ajaye · Jun 1, 2014

Arthur Upfield's Bony books did well overseas, not sure whether so in the US specifically.

RightHoJeeves · Jun 1, 2014

Brightdreamer said:
From my admittedly-highly-limited experience (bits and drabs gleaned from old songs, movies like Man from Snowy River, and such), there was a lot of similarity between frontier Australia and the American Old West, which may explain the heavy crossover interest. Deserts, cattle, horsemen, wide-open spaces, rough frontier law... except for every other animal being deadly poisonous, Oz could almost have been up the road from Tombstone.

Yeah that's basically it.

It's a pretty great book actually. He's portrayed in a reasonably sympathetic way and you see his transformation into the armour-wearing legend, which is pretty cool.

Helix · Jun 1, 2014

I think you're right about the similarities in parts of our histories, Brightdreamer.

I started musing on the question in the opening post because a while back I made a blanket statement that I didn't think I could sell my stories into the US because they were "so Australian". And as soon as I'd typed that, I realised it was a very silly thing to think. There are plenty of reasons that a work might not sell, but a foreign setting is probably not one of the top ones. (The original conversation just happened to be in the context of the US market. My blanket statement could have applied to any countries X and Y.)

Then I got curious about just which books with an Aussie setting had struck a chord with a US audience. I had some vague hunch that crime and romance might've been the biggest sellers.

LA*78 · Jun 1, 2014

Helix said:
I had some vague hunch that crime and romance might've been the biggest sellers.

Because loving and fighting is what we do best.

Helix · Jun 1, 2014

LA*78 said:
Because loving and fighting is what we do best.

Well, of course!

And they're universally popular genres.

You know what's going to happen now? I'm going to think about this far too deeply and end up writing a research thesis on the something something intersection of Australian and US something something literature.

RightHoJeeves · Jun 1, 2014

Helix said:
I started musing on the question in the opening post because a while back I made a blanket statement that I didn't think I could sell my stories into the US because they were "so Australian"

I hope I'm not going to come across as snarky in asking this, but I'm interested to hear what you believe makes something "so Australian". I have never been able to really say what makes something Australian as opposed to American. Australia, to me, seems like a cultural hodge-podge of America and Britain.

gingerwoman · Jun 1, 2014

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Town_Like_Alice

I don't know why, but if it's from Australia or New Zealand, it seems to me like it has to be historical to become popular,which annoys me.
An exception being Once Were Warriors butI don't know if people actually read the book in the USA. I think it was probably just the movie that was popular. And that's getting off topic because it was New Zealand sorry.

Big selling Australian novels in US

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