Blessed kiss.

Abstract

Creative Work: The novel Blessed Kiss Blessed Kiss is set in a Roman Catholic seaside parish in Adelaide in 1960-61. Patrick and Margaret Carlow’s marriage is under strain because of Patrick’s secret affair with Fay Netley, a shop assistant he met in a Broken Hill pharmacy while on one of his outback sales trips as a commercial traveller. As the affair deepens and Fay moves to Adelaide to be closer to him, Patrick’s marriage starts to unravel as Margaret worries that something is very wrong. While his parents are preoccupied with their own problems, their nine year old son Michael comes ever more closely under the eye of their parish priest, Father James Quinlan, and in the end Margaret must choose between acting on her suspicions regarding her parish priest, and her faith itself, to save her son. Exegesis: The Author Is The Book The exegesis examines the creative work Blessed Kiss in the light of the history and identity of its author, and progresses to a critique of Roland Barthes’ essay “The Death of the Author”, rejecting the notion of inauthenticity in favour of the work embodying the author.