Who remembers the onlookers on the sidelines of big events? Such bystanders as the deposed queen Vashti, the blood-stained murdering grandmother Athaliah, the bluff soldier in King David's army, or the desperately searching mother Phoebe? In Bystanders Valerie Volk has created fifteen absorbing characters on the edges of familiar Biblical events. With psychological insight and compassion, she gives a new perspective on stories we thought we knew.
$9.95 – $24.95
Valerie Volk is an award-winning Adelaide writer of poetry, verse novels, short stories, travel tales and longer fiction. A self-confessed voyeur of other people's lives, she is fascinated by the perennial question 'What if ...?'
Valerie loves all music - especially classical, opera and jazz - travel and cats, not necessarily in that order, but she loves writing most of all.
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'Valerie Volk takes us on a different journey of understanding, through the intensely plausible thoughts and words from minor Biblical characters … This book deserves a place not just for enjoyable reading but also as an aid to better understanding of Scripture.' - Rev. Dr Lynn Arnold, AO
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'Reading Bystanders was like attending a reunion of people I used to know when I was a child … The characters in Volk's collection of stories were present at pivotal times in history and are richly and skilfully evoked.' - Jude Aquilina
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'Bystanders takes the reader into the lives of individuals who make fleeting appearances in the Bible, looking on as events swirl around the main characters … Volk's prose is beautifully written and she exhibits a very clever ability to use a "stream of consciousness" dialogue to tell a story.' - Kym Boxall, SM
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'The appendix contains a ready-made source of stimulating questions that venture into many of today's issues such as domestic violence, family relationships, roles and rights of women, greed and exploitation.' - Stephen Rudolph
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'A refreshing, innovative perspective on the biblical passages. The discussion notes and questions are very helpful to use by a teacher or youth minister, or by any reader or study group for ongoing reflection.' - John McGrath, National Catholic Education Union
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'A valuable resource in throwing new light on familiar stories.' - Colin Ames, Together
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'An intriguing blend of well-known biblical situations and a shot of ingenious refreshment. Volk has this incisive ability to take time-worn material and wring from it new angles and twists … a most enjoyable collection of Bible-based stories' - Coral Hartley, The Write Angle
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'Successful and intriguing stories … told by characters with lively personalities and unusual points of view.' - Kerry Goldsworthy, Sydney Morning Herald
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'The reader comes away from the book with a greater understanding not only of the characters, but of the pressures of social expectations of the time.' - Alison Platt, War Cry
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'A highly creative piece of writing which vividly brings some old stories to new life.' - Paul Robinson, CargoART
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'It is a triumph of Volk's Bystanders that she steadily and also daringly brings these old "echoes" back into the present, refiguring our understanding of stories that once were so familiar to many; it may shock and entrance those new to them.' - Peter Price, Sydney Morning Herald