The Golden Age Chapter Summary Table Base Template 4r2ve

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Chapter Summary

1-3

Light Frank looks for Elsa and goes out for a smoke.

1 5-8

Frank has been transferred to the Golden Age from the IDB.

2 9-11

Elsa Elsa comforts one of the babies

3 13-15

Cockatoos Ida broods about coming to Australia and Frank’s polio.

4 17-19

5

The Golden Age

Frank’s Vocation Frank discovers a vocation from Sullivan: Poetry

Important Quotes, Events, Themes, Notes

21-34

Frank meets Sullivan Backhouse in the IDB in an iron lung. They become friends. Sullivan introduces him to poetry. Sullivan’s condition deteriorates and he dies.

6 35-52

The Trains Frank and Ida are trapped in Nazi-Occupied Budapest. Frank is hidden by Ida’s old piano teacher, Julia Marai. Ida works under a false identity. Meyer is in a labour camp. Ida reclaims her son after the city is liberated.

7 53-58

The First Time Frank Saw Elsa Frank is unhappy about being transferred to the Golden Age. Then he sees Elsa.

8 59-64

The Dark Night Elsa re her time in the isolation ward. She thinks of Frank and his curiosities.

9 65-71

10

The Poet

The Loving Body Olive Penny has a brief sexual encounter. She keeps this identity and part of her life completely separate from the Golden Age.

73-78

The children takes lessons. Frank is fed up with his imperialist new “education”. He leaves in search of Elsa.

11 79-83

Angel Wings Frank interrupts Elsa’s therapy bath.

12 85-98

Meyer Walks Home Meyer walks from work to the Golden Age and reflects on the family’s move. He visits Frank and talks to sister Olive Penny.

13 99110

14 111124

15

Bellbirds

Margaret in Her Garden Margaret draws comfort from her garden. She hitches a ride with Raymond to the Golden Age. We learn that her husband is under his sister’s thumb and the town are frightened of them because Elsa has polio. Christmas The Golds help out on Christmas day and some other family or friends come. Most who returned to their families came back feeling awful.

125130

The Verandah symbolises a halfway point. “past the corner”… is a new life.

The children sit or play on the verandah in the summer evenings

16 131138

The Sea

Frank is the Fox Elsa is the Palomino

The Golden Age patients visit the beach. Elsa feels bad because she considers what she never will do again.

17 139143

A Long Cool Drink Meyer brings Bickford’s for the kids but no one is home except Penny. They charm one another.

18 145146

Lidja Lidja and her husband drown in a sailing accident

19 147154

20

The Verandah

The Queen The city is caught up in the excitement of the Royal Visit

The Golds find themselves (especially Meyer) critical of the Antipodeans’ Monarch fetishism.

155158

Ida prepares for the recital. She is upset at all she has lost.

21 159170

The Concert Ida plays at the concert. Policemen and neighbours poke their heads in to applaud. Frank and Ida forgive one another in a smile that proves her excellence.

22 171173

Albert Albert Sutton tries to escape and hurts himself. This is a message to some that the Golden Age isn’t running quite right

23 175179

Anne Lee Anne Lee’s father arrives from Wiluna to take her home. Sister Penny can’t stop him, and also doesn’t know that she really needs to.

24 181185

25

Ida and Meyer

Blue Air Olive visits her old friend/patient Tucker. They have a night of mutual love-making but in the morning she has a feeling something is wrong at the Golden Age and makes a call. Frank has been found in Elsa’s bed.

187193

Frank and Elsa become even closer. Frank visits Elsa in Girls. He is kicked out of the Golden Age.

195205

Poetry

26

Frank, lonely and depressed, immerses himself in poetry from the library and bookstores

27 207211

Meyer seeks out Olive at the beach and farewells her before she leaves to Darwin. They both realise they are losing something but accept that it must be. Penny advises that Frank and Elsa love one another

28 213214

The Call Frank’s depression prompts Ida to call the Briggs and arrange a family tea.

29 215222

30

The Hunch

The Separation Elsa readjusts to living at home. She missed Frank and thinks back on how awful it all is, but she is becoming more comfortable at home in her bed.

223231

The Golds visit the Briggs.

31 233240

32

The Visit

New York Many years later, Elsa’s son Jack tracks Frank down in New York for an interview for his literature magazine Praise. Frank reveals that the best and most important things he learned were at the Golden Age. Elsa is a renowned doctor and lives her retirement quietly looking out over the ocean.

Elsa is in awe of the ‘Europeans’. Meyer secretly detests their lack of culture. Seeing Elsa and Frank sneak off breaks the illusion and Jack is over it.