A Kindness Cup

Thea Astley. Penguin Books, $6.95 (144pp) ISBN 978-0-14-011780-6

This chilling story tells of a small Australian town in the last century, and of the day when a group of white residents massacred some local blacks and took a terrible revenge on one of their own who had befriended them. ``Astley is a writer of astonishing gifts,'' praised PW . (Aug.)

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