Australian literature

Louise Mack, Girls together (#BookReview)

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Louise Mack, Girls togetherWell, that was, surprisingly, genuinely enjoyable. Louise Mack’s Girls together is a sequel to her novel Teens (see Bill’s review), and features protagonist Lennie (Elinor) Leighton. It shouldn’t have been a surprise, given I know something about Mack, through my Monday Musings on her and my review of her debut novel The world is round, but it was, because …

The novel starts with this paragraph:

Square and solid as ever, stood the old brown school, with the fig-trees standing in its playground. The wooded staircase was as firm as even under the rush and onslaught of hurrying feet; the sturdy gate still bore with patience the cruel slammings of girls, big and little, rushing in late when the bell had finished ringing, or hastening homewards before half the school had left the classrooms.

It goes on to describe the chaos and disorganisation attending Lennie who is running late for her train home, and has, besides, lost her ticket. I thought that I was in for a pretty traditional school story. School stories were my favourite stories when I was a young reader, but now, of course, my interests are very different. I was prepared to persevere, however, because I was reading the book for Bill’s AWW Gen 2 Week and because this is a classic written in 1898 by a too-little known Australian woman writer. (You may wonder why I specifically chose it, but it was a serendipitous decision, being one of the books I found in my late aunt’s house when I was managing her estate. Bill’s week proved the perfect opportunity to read it.)

As it turned out, the book is not a traditional school story. School is part of it, but the focus is 16-year-old Lennie at a point of transition in her life – and her relationship with her 18-year-old friend Mabel, who returns in the opening chapters from Paris and is training to be an artist. Now, Lennie belongs to the tradition of some other famous sisters – like Judy in Ethel Turner’s Seven little Australians, Jo in Little women, and even, in a way, Elizabeth in Pride and prejudice. She’s impulsive more than sensible, but is loyal and generous of heart to those whom she loves. She lives with her parents (the Mother and the Doctor), her big brother Bert who is at University, and her little sisters, sensible Floss, gentle obedient Mary and the youngest, 11-year-old Brenda, who is observant, quick and a bit naughty. I’m sure you can recognise some of these “types”.

There is a marriage plot – but not for Lennie. This is more a coming-of-age book than a romance: it’s about Lennie’s transition from self-focused girlhood to adulthood and its associated more mature world-view. This, Mack handles nicely. Her characters may be recognisable types – but they are also individualised. Mack captures how girls feel, how they relate to each other authentically. Here is Lennie meeting her friend Mabel after two years’ separation:

You see they merely hovered on the outskirts of all they meant to say, touching things lightly, with the shyness of their reunion still lingering around lips and eyes. But as the twilight deepened, and darkness came softly into the bedroom, laughs grew more and more frequent with them.

But, there are many writers who capture relationships and communication well. What makes this book particularly interesting to read for us, now – and here I’m repeating the point made by Bill – is the social history, the picture Mack paints of 1890s Sydney, including a reference to the Banking Crisis of 1893.  The reference is brief, but it is used as a plot point in the trajectory of Lennie’s life.

More interesting, though, is the discussion of gender. Louise Mack was not, I understand, an activist in the Australian suffrage movement but she was part of the “women-oriented culture” which was becoming increasingly visible from the 1890s. Gender issues, sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly, underpin much of what happens in Girls together. Indirectly, it’s there, for example, in an assumption that “girls” can go to university. Whether they should or shouldn’t isn’t even discussed. It’s just assumed that they can. Direct references, though, abound. Mabel’s art teacher in Paris tells her:

‘When you go back to Australia, Mees, you just take care you do not marry, for eef you marry you will never paint better than you do now.’

And the girls themselves frequently discuss gender issues, sometimes with Lennie’s brother Bert. There’s a discussion about ambition where Bert suggests that Mabel and Lennie talk about it constantly while men, he says, never do. Does this reflect women’s increasing awareness that they can have goals beyond the domestic? There’s a reference to Lennie’s mother’s anxiety about the potential for girls failing in their push for “public” careers, and, being a woman of her times, she “would have kept them back from success rather than let them face the chance of failure.” All this is told naturally, not melodramatically, giving a realistic sense of a normal family facing changing times. We see parents having their thoughts and concerns, but supporting their children, rather than opposing them.

Nonetheless, this is a book of the 1890s. So, when Lennie is told by Mabel’s art teacher – a character respected in the novel – that “It’s better to be a good woman than a great one, little girl … unless you can be both”, I wondered what Mack really saw as options for her heroine.

All I can say is that the novel has an open ending. This may be because Mack planned to write more about the family – and she did write a third novel, Teens triumphant, in 1933 – but perhaps it also reflects an awareness that girls’ lives aren’t complete at the age of 17 or so, and that Lennie still has a chance at greatness!

Finally, there are lovely descriptions of Sydney, but again this is not overdone. In this week’s Monday Musings, I quoted a reviewer writing in 1917 that Capel Boake had “not made the mistake, very common with our writers, of painting in the ‘local colour’ so heavily that the human element in the picture is lost in what we may call a superficial provincialism of incident and characterisation.” Well, neither did Mack make this mistake, some twenty years earlier. The colour is there and is lovely, but is used sparingly to set the scene – and perhaps convey some attendant emotions:

The year was at September, when suddenly Summer came stepping down from her niche among the seasons, and ousted Spring before her time was well begun. The hot winds from the great inland plains of New South Wales blew down over the mountains to this city at the Harbour’s edge, and suddenly everyone woke from their winter cosiness, and furs and fires, and delightful nights, to find that the time for sleeping was over, and the restless nights and long, trying days of the Australian summer-time had come again, long before their time was due.

Girls together is an entertaining, refreshingly written story that clearly draws on Mack’s own experiences and concerns. It also reflects the social consciousness for which the period is well-known and, as an urban novel, it offers an antidote to the “bush realism” school which largely typifies Bill’s Gen 2 period. Well worth reading if you get the opportunity.

AWW Challenge 2019 BadgeLouise Mack
Girls together
London: The Pilgrim Press [n.d]
[first pub. 1898]
220pp.

Indie Books Awards shortlist, 2019, announced

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And so it, starts, the Literary Awards trail! Early in the year will be the Stella Prize, but first up is the Indie Book Awards. These are lovely awards, because they are run by Australia’s Independent Booksellers – who are members of Leading Edge Books – and we love to support them don’t we? Consequently, I’ve decided to share them this year. (I don’t list every award, every year, but just select a few to give a flavour to the year’s Awards scene!)

The Press Release I received reminds us of the Awards’s role and history. They were established in 2008, and, they say, have developed “a well-deserved reputation for picking the best of the best in Australian writing”. They “recognise and celebrate this country’s incredible talent and the role independent booksellers play in supporting and nurturing Australian writing.”

Past Book of the Year winners have gone on to be bestsellers and win other major literary awards, and include Charlotte Wood’s The natural way of things by Charlotte Wood (my review); Don Watson’s The bush (on my TBR); Richard Flanagan’s The narrow road to the deep north (my review); Anna Funder’s All that I am (still on my TBR); Craig Silvey’s Jasper Jones (read before blogging); and Tim Winton’s Breath (my post).

The shortlisted books have been nominated by independent booksellers, but the winners in each category will be selected by judging panels. The booksellers, though, get to vote for their favourites in each category too. And, there is also an overall Book of the year which is what those examples I mentioned above won.)

The list seems a reasonable one though we could make the usual comments about diversity. There’s not a lot of it here, though indigenous writers (Marcia Langton, and Ambelin Kwaymullina & Ezekiel Kwaymullina) appear in the categories I haven’t listed here.

The shortlist

Fiction

  • Jane Harper’s The lost man (Macmillan Australia)
  • Kristina Olsson’s Shell (Scribner Australia) (Lisa’s review)
  • Tim Winton’s The shepherd’s hut (Penguin Random House Australia)
  • Markus Zusak’s Bridge of clay (Picador Australia)

 Non-Fiction

  • Richard Glover’s The land before avocado (ABC Books, HarperCollins Australia): Mr Gums is reading this now
  • Chloe Hooper’s The arsonist (Penguin Random House Australia) (Lisa’s review)
  • Bri Lee’s Eggshell skull (Allen & Unwin)
  • Leigh Sales’ Any ordinary day (Penguin Random House Australia)

Trent Dalton, Boy swallows universeDebut fiction

  • Trent Dalton’s Boy swallows universe (HarperCollins Australia): (my review)
  • Chris Hammer’s Scrublands (Allen & Unwin)
  • Heather Morris’s The tattooist of Auschwitz (Echo Publishing) (Lisa’s review)
  • Christian White’s The nowhere child (Affirm Press)

There are also shortlists for Illustrated non-fiction, Children’s and Young Adult. For the full list, check out the website. 

The Winners will be announced on Monday 18 March, 2019 at the Leading Edge Books Annual Conference Awards Dinner, in Adelaide, SA.

The Indie Book Awards list their main sponsors for these awards: Peribo, Pan Macmillan Australia, Affirm Press, Allen & Unwin, Thames & Hudson Australia, Hardie Grant Egmont, Text Publishing, and Awards partner: Books+Publishing.  

Good Australian writing needs good Australian bookshops to prosper. Without them Australian writers are one more endangered species whose bush has been bulldozed.
(Richard Flanagan, Indie Book Awards 2014 Book of the Year,
The narrow road to the deep north)

Monday musings on Australian literature: Capel Boake

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This week Bill (The Australian Legend) is following up last January’s Australian Women Writers Gen 1 Week with a Gen 2 Week, this one highlighting Australian women writers from 1890 to 1918. He takes his inspiration from HM Green’s A history of Australian literature, which characterises 1890-1923 as a period of “Self-conscious Nationalism”, the time of “bush realism”.

Anyhow, I will, of course, be contributing a review for this, but later in the week. In the meantime, as I did last year, I’m devoting a Monday Musings to a writer of the period, though unlike last year, not for the writer I’m reviewing. That’s because she, Louise Mack, already has a Monday Musings to her name. Today’s featured writer, then, is the unusually named Capel Boake.

Who was Capel Boake?

Capel Boake, no date, presumed public domainLike last year’s Tasma, Capel Boake is a pseudonym. Her real name was Doris Boake Kerr. She was born in Sydney in 1889, to Australian-born parents, and died in Victoria in 1944. She wrote under two pseudonyms, Capel Boake and Stephen Grey (the latter for collaborative works with poet, Bernard Cronin).

Although born in Sydney, she apparently spent most of her life – including most of her childhood – in Melbourne. She left school early, and worked as a shop assistant, secretary, librarian and book-keeper. Arnold in the Australian dictionary of biography, quotes Boake as saying that she was “self-educated at the Prahran Public Library”.

Her uncle was the respected poet, Barcroft Boake, who committed suicide in 1892 at the age of 26. His father, and Boake’s grandfather, was Barcroft Capel Boake, the Capel apparently reflecting their Welsh heritage.

Boake never married, and lived in the family home in Caulfield. The Australasian article, cited under Sources below, says that she liked swimming, fires and grilled chops on the beach, billy tea, and gardening.

Most relevant to us though is that, as another article says, she was “well-known in literary circles.” This included being active in P.E.N. International, the Fellowship of Australian Writers, and a foundation member of the Society of Australian Authors. She worked at one stage as a secretary to J. K. Moir about whom I’ve written before: he founded Melbourne’s Bread and Cheese Club, and was an impressive book-collector who created “one of the finest private libraries of Australian literature ever assembled”.

What did she write?

There is far less written about Boake, than there was about last year’s Tasma, but I did find some info in Trove, particularly in The Australasian’s Australian Writers Series (cited below). It reports that

Writing has always been in her blood, and from her earliest years she has felt the urge to express herself through the written word. But she remembers her first published story, which appeared in “The Australasian” in 1917. From then on she wrote a number of stories and poems for “The Australasian.”

So, she wrote short stories, poetry, and articles, but her favourite medium was apparently the novel. Her first, Painted clay, brought her “definite recognition as a serious writer”. Yet, she only wrote four novels, one of which was published posthumously:

  • Painted clay (1917, reprinted by Virago, 1986)
  • The Romany mark (1923)
  • The dark thread (1936)
  • The twig is bent (Sydney, 1946, posthumous)

Wikipedia says that her “subject matter included the options available to women in the early twentieth century, circus life, and early Melbourne history.” What Wikipedia doesn’t say, but The Australasian does, is that The dark thread 

tells of the growth of Jewish national feeling in a boy, the son of a Jewish father and Christian mother, who, living in Australia but going to the war and later learning of the establishment of the Jews in Palestine, felt the urge to go there as a unit of the Jewish nation. The idea of the theme came to Capel Boake when staying in the country, in hearing from a Jewish hawker some of his hopes and aspirations.

Interesting, huh?

Painted clay

Capel Boake, Painted clayGiven Painted clay is the only novel that officially falls within Bill’s Gen 2 period, I’ll conclude with two contemporary comments on it. The Western Mail describes it thus:

It is a sex story created on conventional lines. If there be still a demand for this type of fiction, this new nation under the Southern Cross may as well make its contribution. This is a story of city life, every word of which might well be true. It is original only in the sense that every individual life is original, and a bringing together of a number of lives in a novel may be done without either much originality or imagination. Neither of these qualities are conspicuous, yet the story is well written and suggests talent for better things. Helen is a really fine character, and capable of better things than the author gave her to do.

Positive, but not completely so. Interestingly, the article seems to pretty much tell the whole story. No worries about spoilers then?

The Australasian’s reviewer was a little more expansive, albeit also noting faults. S/he starts, however, by mentioning that the novel is wholly a product of Australia and says that its typography and format are “a credit to its publishers”. S/he then continues:

As might be expected in a first effort of the kind, the story is not free from certain crudities of thought and occasional lapses in craftsmanship, but it has, on the other hand, decided merits which raise it far above the average of Australian novels, and justify one in expecting much from Miss Boake in the days to come. It is a real attempt to present a faithful picture of life in a Melbourne setting. The authoress has not made the mistake, very common with our writers, of painting in the “local colour” so heavily that the human element in the picture is lost in what we may call a superficial provincialism of incident and characterisation. [my emphasis] In other words, while rightly choosing for her story a setting with which she is familiar, she uses the setting merely as a medium for explaining general truths of the interaction of human nature and life experiences as she understands them. It follows, therefore, that the interest of her story does not lie in sensational happenings or in the surface peculiarities of habits or manners on this continent or any particular part of it, but in the quality of her characters and the manner in which they react to their environment. The defects in her work are obviously the result of her own as yet somewhat restricted experience of life, and not of wrong method of attack, or misguided imagination, or a striving after meretricious effects. Their cause is consequently one that time should cure.

Such a lovely detailed analysis.

Anyhow, it sounds like Boake is worth checking out. How great that Virago reissued her, choosing this novel, I presume, because, as ADB’s John Arnold writes, it’s about “a shop assistant’s fight for independence in a period when menial work or marriage were the only choices for a majority of young women.” Not all Gen 2 writers were about “bush realism” it seems.

Sources

Arnold, John. ‘Kerr, Doris Boake (1889–1944)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, 2000.

‘Australian Writers Series: Doris Kerr, as “Capel Boake,” adds lustre to a name already known in literature’, The Australasian, 27 May 1939.

Jarrah Dundler, Hey Brother (#BookReview)

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Jarrah Dundler, Hey BrotherIs she ever going to write another actual review you’ve been probably wondering but yes, I am – and it’s for the young protagonist book I mentioned in my recent Reading Highlights post. The book is Jarrah Dundler’s debut novel, Hey Brother, which was shortlisted for the The Australian/Vogel Upublished Manuscript Award in 2017 under the title Tryst. Tryst is quite a clever title: it’s the nickname of the 14-year-old protagonist Trysten, and suggests actual and hoped for trysts between the teen couples, but maybe it also has overtones of something more genre-like so was rejected? As it is, the published title conveys both the familial and broader meanings of brotherhood, which are played out nicely in the novel.

Publisher Allen & Unwin categorises Hey Brother as Popular Fiction, and describes it as “a genuine and compellingly portrayed family drama of a tough kid from rural Australia”. I would describe it, however, as a coming-of-age novel, and it reads to me as more Young Adult than Adult. There’s nothing wrong with this, but it explains my uncertainty about how to read it – or, to be more specific, how to write about it.

So, the book. Hey Brother has a first person narrator, the aforementioned Trysten who lives on a property in northern New South Wales with his mother, Kirsty, and his big brother Shaun. His father, Old Greggy, is there too, but prior to the novel’s start he’d been exiled by Kirsty to a caravan down by the river. So, it’s a somewhat fractured family, but not devastatingly so, because it becomes quickly clear that there’s an underlying love and respect between them all. The novel starts with big brother Shaun going off to fight “the Taliban in Afghanistan”, where he’d “been keen to head from the get-go, back when the dust from the Twin Towers was still settling”.

Into this mix comes uncle Trev who turns up to support his sister, Tryst’s mother who is worrying about her son off at war. Her form of “worrying” includes self-medicating with alcohol and letting her other responsibilities fall by the wayside. Unfortunately, Trev, who has some lovely moments of wisdom, also self-medicates his own demons the same way. It’s not a lethal mix, but it creates its challenges, and in fact offers Trev some insights. There is also Tryst’s best friend Ricky, and, as the book progresses, their girlfriends, Jessica and Jade. It’s a tight little community, and Dundler handles the relationships well. They feel real, with the tensions authentic, understandable, and not over-dramatised. In fact, Dundler’s characterisation is a strong point. His people live and breathe from the moment they appear on the page.

Hey Brother, then, features the typical YA narrative – a young teen meets his first love and is desperate to spend more time with her. But this particular story is complicated by the teen’s relationship with his brother whom he hero-worships but who returns from war psychologically damaged, suffering from PTSD. The novel’s crisis is, in fact, triggered by Shaun’s mental distress, and complicated by the conflict confronting Tryst between his love for Jessica and for his brother.

The novel is told first person by Tryst, in the vernacular of a rural, teenage boy. It’s fresh, direct, immediate, full of the profanity and colloquialisms that are appropriate to the context – but, here’s the thing, it is also more descriptive than reflective. Tryst comes across as a loving, heart-of-gold young man, but he is about the moment. To some extent we can see the deeper issues at play here – the PTSD, the complexity in the adult characters’ lives and relationships – but these are not the novel’s focus. The focus is Trysten, his life and, ultimately, his growth. This, to me, makes the novel Young Adult – and makes it quite different from, say, Laguna’s The choke (my review) where, although the story is young Justine’s, the themes focus on the impoverished environment – economically, socially, spiritually – that makes her life the way it is.

Did, then, I enjoy the novel? Yes, in that its protagonist and setting are foreign to my experience and I like to read about lives different to mine, and because the writing was engaging, lively, and appropriate in language and imagery. Here, for example, Tryst describes Trev confessing to past troubles:

It was like he wanted the words to go straight down the plughole after he’d uttered them.

And Trev, late in the novel, gives Tryst some advice:

‘Decisions, mate. That’s what defines you in the end. Some advice for ya–before you make one, try and give it a little thought beforehand, would ya? ‘Cause, believe me, regret’s a f****n c**t of a thing to live with.’

I also liked that late in the novel, we learn, in passing, that Ricky, Tryst’s friend, is indigenous. The reference is somewhat didactically done, but Dundler clearly wanted to do what we need more of, that is, to include indigenous characters without their indigeneity being an issue in the story. How you do this is the challenge.

However, Young Adult Fiction is not really my interest. Young Adult concerns belong to a long-ago part of my life. I appreciated Dundler’s skills in plotting and characterisation, not to mention his heart and desire to give life and air to some big issues, but I did tire at times of Tryst’s concerns, perspective and voice. Not his fault, mine. I would unhestitatingly recommend this book to YA readers – and would willingly check out Dundler’s next work. A good debut.

For a beautiful post on this book, check out Theresa Smith’s (Theresa Smith Writes).

Jarrah Dundler
Hey brother
Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2018
281pp.
ISBN: 9781760631123

(Review copy courtesy Allen & Unwin)

Note: The asterisked words in the quote are to defect the wrong sort of hits coming my way.

Monday musings on Australian literature: Some New Releases in 2019

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I’ve been doing this “new releases” post for three or four years now. As the post title says, it’s about books that will be published this year, but I’ll be selective, focusing on those most interesting to me. This doesn’t mean that I expect to read them all, just that they interest me!! Last year I listed 14 works of fiction, and read four of them, with another likely to be read this month, so, you know, I do get to some!

My list, as in previous years, is mostly drawn from the Sydney Morning Herald, but, because this is a Monday musings on Australian literature post, it will be limited to Australian authors (listed alphabetically.) Do click on the link to see coming releases from non-Aussies, and from those Aussies I’ve omitted.

Links on the authors’ names are to my posts on them.

Nigel Featherstone, Bodies of menFiction

  • Tony Birch’s The white girl (UQP, July 2019)
  • Carmel Bird’s Field of poppies (Transit Lounge, November 2019)
  • Stephen Carroll’s The year of the beast (Fourth Estate, February 2019): the last of his Glenroy novels
  • Melanie Cheng’s Room for a stranger (Text, May 2019)
  • Simon Cleary’s The War Artist (UQP, March 2019)
  • Madelaine Dickie’s Red can origami (Fremantls Press, December 2019)
  • Nigel Featherstone’s Bodies of men (Hachette Australia, April 2019)
  • Peggy Frew’s Islands (Allen & Unwin, March 2019)
  • Andrea Goldsmith’s Invented lives (Scribe, April 2019)
  • Anna Goldsworthy’s Melting moments (Black Inc, July 2019)
  • Peter Goldsworthy’s Minotaur (Viking, July 2019). Haha, father and daughter being published in the same month.
  • Wayne Macauley’s Simpson returns: A novella (Text, April 2019)
  • Andrew McGahan’s The rich man’s house (Allen & Unwin, late 2019.)
  • Gerald Murnane’s A season on earth (Text, February 2019)
  • Elliot Perlman’s Maybe the horse will talk (Vintage, October 2019)
  • Kate Richards’ Fusion (Hamish Hamilton, February 2019)
  • Heather Rose’s new apparently unnamed novel (Allen & Unwin, second half of 2019)
  • Philip Salom’s The returns (Transit Lounge, August 2019)
  • Angela Savage’s Mother of Pearl (Transit Lounge, July 2019)
  • Graeme Simsion’s The Rosie result (Text, February 2019)
  • Dominic Smith’s The Electric Hotel (Allen & Unwin, June 2019)
  • Carrie Tiffany’s Exploded view (Text, March 2019)
  • Lucy Treloar’s Wolfe Island (Picador, September 2019)
  • Christos Tsiolkas’ Damascus (Allen & Unwin, second half of 2019)
  • Karen Viggers’ The orchardist’s daughter (Allen & Unwin, early 2019)
  • Tara June Winch’s The yield (Hamish Hamilton, July 2019)
  • Sue Woolfe’s new apparently unnamed novel (Scribner, November 2019)

There is an oddity. SMH and The Australian say that Anna Krien’s first novel, Act of grace, will be published by Black inc in October 2019. However, internet searches show it as having been published in May 2018, and Readings bookshop listed it last year as coming in September 2018? Was it scheduled for 2018 and it didn’t happen? Anyhoo…

The SMH also lists what it calls “new voices”. These include:

  • Sienna Brown’s Master of my fate (Vintage, May2019)
  • Melissa Ferguson’s The shining wall (Transit Lounge, April 2019)
  • Kathryn Hind’s Hitch (Vintage, June 2019): which won the Penguin Random House Prize
  • Alex Landragin’s Crossings (Picador, June 2019): which “can be read in two directions and covers hundreds of years and multiple lifetimes”
  • S.L Lim’s Real differences (Transit Lounge, June 2019)
  • Felicity McLean’s The Van Apfel girls are gone (Fourth Estate, April 2019)
  • Ruby Porter’s Attraction (Text, May 2019): which won Text’s Michael Gifkins Prize for an Unpublished Novel
  • Tim Slee’s Taking Tom Murray home (HarperCollins, August 2019): who won the Banjo Prize for Australian fiction with Burn. Is this the same book with a new title?

Short stories

Yes, I know these are fiction too, but they deserve a special section!

  • Debra Adelaide’s Zebra (Picador, February 2019)
  • Josephine Rowe’s Here until August, (Black Inc., September 2019)
  • Chris Womersley’s A lovely and terrible thing (Picador, May 2019)

Non-fiction

SMH provides a rather long list of new non-fiction books covering a huge range of topics, so, like last year, I’m going to be very selective, focusing on writers I know or topics that particularly interest me:

  • Julia Baird’s Phosphorescence: On awe, wonder and things that sustain you when the world goes dark (HarperCollins, September 2019): a meditation on maintaining joy (by the author of the recently acclaimed biography, Victoria)
  • Phil Barker’s The revolution of man (Allen & Unwin, February 2019): on Australian masculinity
  • Luke Carman’s Intimate antipathies (Giramondo, first half of 2019): on “the writing life”
  • Jane Caro’s Accidental feminists (MUP, February): On Caro’s generation’s gender politics
  • Sophie Cunningham’s City of trees: Essays on life, death and the need for a forest (Text, April 2019)
  • Ben Eltham’s The culture paradox: Why the arts are the best thing Australia has going for it but no one really cares (NewSouth, August 2019): “a much needed examination of Australian arts and culture” – and a VERY long title!
  • Hannah Gadsby’s Ten steps to Nanette (Allen & Unwin, June 2019)
  • Stan Grant’s Australia Day (HarperCollins, May 2019): follow-up to Talking to my country (my review), apparently
  • Stan Grant’s On identity (MUP, May 2019)
  • Jacqueline Kent’s Beyond words: A year with Kenneth Cook (UQP, February 2019): autobiography
  • Fiona McGregor’s A Novel Idea (Giramondo: April): a photo essay
  • Emily Maguire‘s This is what a feminist looks like (NLA, October 2019): on the Australian feminist movement .
  • Jocelyn Moorhouse’s Unconditional love: A memoir of filmmaking and motherhood (Text, April 2019)
  • Mandy Ord’s When one person dies the whole world is over (Brow Books, February 2019): described as a diary comic
  • Jane Sullivan’s Storytime (Ventura, August 2019): on her favourite childhood books (which sounds just right for me as a new grandma)

Biography

  • Mary Hoban’s An unconventional wife (Scribe, April 2019): on “Julia Sorrell, a Tasmanian ‘colonial belle’ who refused to follow gender expectations”
  • Matthew Lamb’s Frank Moorhouse: A discontinuous life (Vintage, December, Vintage): a great title, given Moorhouse often describes himself as writing “discontinuous narratives”
  • Derek Reilly’s Gulpilil (Pan Macmillan, second half of 2019)
  • Margaret Simons’ biography of Penny Wong (Black Inc., October 2019): not sure of the title
  • Anne-Louise Willoughby’s Nora Heysen: A portrait (Fremantle Press, April 2019): on “the first Australian woman to become an official war artist and to win the Archibald Prize”.
  • Jessica White’s Hearing Maud: A Journey for a Voice (UWA Press, July 2019): memoir/biography about Australian writer Rosa Praed’s deaf daughter Maud

There are some great sounding books here. Do any interest you?

Monday musings on Australian literature: Australian Women Writers Challenge 2018

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AWW Badge 2018As has become tradition, I’m devoting my last Monday Musings of the year to the Australian Women Writers Challenge* – but, this year it coincides with New Year’s Eve. When this post goes live, who knows what revelry I’ll be up to! Hmm … I can but hope! Seriously, though, I wish all you wonderful Whispering Gums followers an excellent 2019 in whatever form you would like that to take. I also want to thank you for supporting my blog with your visits and comments. You make this blog such an enjoyable experience for me.

Now, the challenge … it has continued to go very well. In my area of Literary and Classics, we consolidated 2017’s impressive increase in the number of reviews posted, with roughly the same number posted again this year. Theresa Smith (of Theresa Smith writes), continued to oversee the day-to-day management of the blog, enabling Challenge founder Elizabeth Lhuede to be less hands-on. Elizabeth is, however, still an active presence, particularly when it comes to resolving technical issues, reviewing our policies (such as “do we need to update our definition of historical fiction”?), and so on. The database now contains reviews for nearly 5,200 books across all forms and genres, from all periods, of Australian women’s writing. This means that the number of books reviewed on our database increased by 800 books – a 17% increase. Most of these were new releases but older books were also added, making the database particularly rich for readers interested in the long tail!

Most years, I’ve shared some highlights from the Challenge, but this year was more one of consolidation than of many new happenings, so, in the interests of keeping this post short and to the point, I’ll move straight on to reporting on the reviews I contributed for the year.

My personal round-up for the year

Let’s start with the facts, followed by some commentary. I posted 34 reviews for the challenge, four more than I did in 2016 and 2017, but one, admittedly, was a guest post. Here they are, with links to my reviews:

Jenny Ackland, Little godsFICTION

CHILDREN’S PICTURE BOOKS

Carmel Bird, Dead aviatrixSHORT STORIES

SCRIPTS

Amanda Duthie, Margaret and DavidNON-FICTION

This year I reversed the trend of previous years which saw me reading fewer and fewer novels for the Challenge – 48% in 2015, 40% in 2016, and only 34% in 2017 – compared with other forms of writing. This year, however, novels comprised over 55% of my AWW challenge reading, which proportion more closely reflects my reading preferences.

I read no poetry or verse novels this year, but I did read two plays by Garner. I also read fewer short story collections or anthologies, but I did read more Classics, including individual short stories. I’d love to read more of those. My non-fiction reading was more diverse – that is, significantly fewer memoirs than last year.

Claire G Coleman, Terra nulliusI’m disappointed that I only read two books this year by Indigenous Australian women – Claire G. Coleman’s novel and Marie Munkara’s memoir. I’d like to improve this next year – and have two right now on the “definitely-will-be-read pile”, so that’s a start.

Anyhow, if you’d like to know more about the Challenge, check it out here. We are also on Facebook, Twitter (@auswomenwriters), GoodReads and Google+. Do consider joining us. All readers are welcome.

Finally, a big thanks again to Theresa, Elizabeth and the rest of the team. I love being part of this challenge, partly because I believe in its goals but also because the people involved are so willing and cooperative. They are a pleasure to work with. See you in 2019.

And so, on to 2019

AWW Challenge 2019 BadgeThe 2019 sign up form is ready, so this is also my Sign Up post for next year. As always, I’m nominating myself for the Franklin level, which is to read 10 books by Australian women and post reviews for at least 6 of those. I expect, of course, to exceed this.

* This challenge was instigated by Elizabeth Lhuede in 2012 in response to concerns in Australian literary circles about the lack of recognition for women writers. I have been one of the challenge’s volunteers since 2013, being responsible for the Literary and Classics areas.

Monday musings on Australian literature: ABC RN presenters name their 2018 summer picks

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Last Monday, I posted the best picks for 2018 by ABC RN’s Book Show presenters and some of their guests. I considered not posting at all this Monday. After all, it’s Christmas Eve and most of us are busy, but then, yesterday, I saw that the ABC had posted “2018’s best summer reads” recommended by their Hub on Books and Bookshelf program presenters. Of course, I couldn’t resist.

Unlike last week’s post, though, where I justified giving equal weight to all the picks, this week I’m going to prioritise their Aussie selections, and then mention the rest at the end. Seems fair enough for this Monday Musings series!

So, just four of the eleven picks were by Aussies, and they are:

  • Michael Mohammed Ahmed’s The lebs (Hachette): Sarah L’Estrange , producer of The Hub on Books, says that “There’s a lot of violence, homophobia and sexism in the novel — the author doesn’t recoil from an honest portrayal of life through the eyes of his protagonist” but that it is also “a lyrical, at times comical and often challenging read”.
  • Melissa Lucashenko’s Too much lip (UQP) which is on my TBR and I’ll be getting to it soon, maybe in summer!: Kate Evans of The Bookshelf, calls it “a cracking tale of family dynamics” that has “a touch of magic that’s light enough to feel entirely real, and keep readers reaching for words like ‘tough’ and ‘uncompromising’.” (Lisa has reviewed.)
  • Emily O'Grady, The yellow houseEmily O’Grady’s The yellow house (Allen & Unwin) (my review): The Hub on Books’ Claire Nicholls describes it as “a chilling book that explores the different ways that trauma resonates through a family.”
  • Tracy Sorensen’s The lucky galah (Picador Australia): Sarah L’Estrange said that “While it might sound kooky, the novel is written in a warm, vivid and charming manner. Who knew that galahs could provide insight into 1960s Australian family dynamics?” (Lisa has reviewed and while it’s not her top pick, she thinks debut author Sorensen has promise.)

Interestingly, of last year’s six Aussie picks, I had read none at the time, and have picked up only one since, Sarah Krasnostein’s The trauma cleaner (my review). However, this year, I have already read one, as I’ve mentioned, and will be reading at least one other very soon.

Anyhow, the other picks were:

  • English writer Pat Barker’s The silence of the girls
  • American writer Amy Bloom’s White houses
  • Northern Irish writer Anna Burns Booker prize winner The milkman
  • American writer Andrew Sean Greer’s Pulitzer prize-winner Less
  • Chinese-born American writer Ling Ma’s Severance (which was published here by Text)
  • Indian writer Anuradha Roy’s All the lives we never lived
  • Canadian debut novelist Katherena Vermette’s The break (published here by Allen & Unwin).

While there was a preponderance of non-Aussie books in their picks, the selection as a whole feels more diverse than last year’s, with Arab-Australian writer Ahmed and indigenous Australian Lucashenko making up two of the four Aussie selections, and the rest not being your mainstream English and American writers (not to cast aspersions on the quality of the writing from those writers!) How great, for example to see a Canadian debut author here. The versatile Vermette is from Winnipeg and is of Métis descent, a group I hadn’t heard of before.

I should make a point here about my reference to diversity. My raising the issue is somewhat equivalent to discussion about quotas or not for increasing diversity in workplaces, in parliament, etc. I believe in merit, but I also believe that merit is often not judged in a fair playing field. This means that equally meritorious writing (however we define that) from non-dominant culture writers does not necessarily get equal exposure, because, for example, publishers, agents, and even, if they do get published, readers, do not take a “risk” on them. The more we talk about the issue, the more, I hope, the opportunities will be equalled.

Anyhow, if you are wondering about my picks, I’ll be joining the fray next week when 2019 arrives … I know you can hardly wait!

Meanwhile, have you read any of these books, and would you support the presenters’ recommendations for them?

Rodney Hall, A stolen season (#BookReview)

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Rodney Hall, A stolen seasonRodney Hall is one of those Australian authors who deserves more attention than he seems to get. Consequently, I’m thrilled to at last include him in my blog, with his latest novel A stolen season. I was introduced to Hall back in the late 1980s when my reading group read his surprising novel, Just relations, and I’ve also read another surprising novel by him, The day we had Hitler home. Hall is good at surprising, because A stolen season isn’t exactly run-of-the-mill, either, in terms of its characters and set-up.

It’s a tricksy book comprising three different, more-or-less alternating, story-lines. The chapters go like this: Adam and Bridget, Marianna, Adam and Bridget, John Philip, Adam and Bridget, Marianna, Adam and Bridget. Adam and Bridget, then, form the driving story, and there seems to be no connection between the three sets of characters for a very, very long time. Indeed, by the middle story, John Philip, the only literal connection is a minor character from the first Adam-and-Bridget chapter appearing as a rather minor character in this one. Later, a similarly loose, not-exactly-direct, connection occurs between Adam and Marianna. What gives, we wonder? Who are Marianna and John Philip? Why are we also reading about them? And, will they all ever actually meet, as we expect in novels like this? Well, all I’ll say is that Hall does not, as is probably his wont, do the expected. No, I’ll say more in fact: if we focus our energies on worrying about this structural plot issue, we risk missing what’s important, which is the overarching idea that gradually reveals itself, an idea relating to money and power, and to the way they can not only deceive but actively generate inhumane/anti-human values.

The main story, Adam and Bridget’s, centres on soldier Adam. He returns from fighting with the Coalition of the Willing in Iraq so severely damaged that he can only live, get around, by means of an exoskeleton (the “Contraption”) that is activated and controlled by his brain, something which Hall explains at the end is not complete science fiction. Adam and Bridget’s story is surprising from the beginning, because, while we realise that this injured soldier, Adam, whom we’ve just met, has a wife, we don’t realise, until he arrives home, that the marriage was essentially over by the time he’d gone to war. This was not because they hated each other but because they’d married on a whim – “it seemed a fun thing to do at the time, but they were just kids and kidding” – and the marriage had run its course. Unfortunately for Bridget, she had never got around to legally leaving Adam after he had physically left her to go to war, because it had never seemed necessary. Now what was she to do?

Adam and Bridget’s story is darkly humorous, but also deeply moving, not least because Hall imbues them with a humanity that we can relate to and recognise. They embody the sorts of inner conflicts anyone would experience in a situation like this – Adam, desiring his wife but incapable of achieving what he most wants, wants, genuinely, generously, to set her free, and Bridget, feeling trapped but empathetic, increasingly tender, wants to do the right thing by this decent strong man. Hall writes their story – writes all of the stories in fact – from the individual characters’ third person points of view. Not only does this make for engrossing reading, but it reveals Hall to be a writer who knows, fundamentally, what makes us human.

Meanwhile, Marianna, a German-born Australian, is on the run in Belize after discovering that her husband had seriously deceived her and was implicated in the greed that underpinned what we Australians call the GFC. While Adam and Bridget’s story is the most personal one, hers is the more mysterious, mystical one. Why is she in Belize, and what does she want with the Mayan pyramid? It’s all to do with numbers, mathematics, and end-of-the world predictions. Hers is the hardest story to pin down, because of its more mystical quest. She sees the temple:

… the structural puzzle of steps and platforms on all sides forming a pyramid crowned by a little room with a single doorway–like the lonely eye of the soul.

Marianna gets it. With neither front nor back, nor left nor right, the geometry is inward looking.

And then there’s John Philip, 70-something, indolent and mega wealthy from family money, who suddenly finds himself in possession of a strange bequest – a long-lost book of “the” artist Turner’s erotic sketches of female pudenda. What he does with these is to thumb his nose at his family in a stylish but shockingly public way while, at the same time, making a statement about art. His is the central or peak story to and from which the other chapters formally if not narratively move. It is satiric, rather than tragic, and has a guffaw-producing, conversation-ending last line, but, in placing him at the centre of his story, Hall is surely presenting his manifesto on the meaning and role of art. John Philip realises:

‘The thing about art’–he finds words for the revelation taking shape in his mind–is that art can be a gift. It’s for whoever sees what it is. That’s what makes it art in the first place.’ He probes deeper. ‘I suppose that also makes it political. I mean, if you can’t stop it speaking the truth.’

Back to Adam and Bridget. What is so special about their story is the way Hall weaves the political into the personal so closely that they are almost indistinguishable. It is here that the “cost” of war is plain to see; it is here that the “money” theme – the idea that “the accountants” are at “the wheel” – is played out to its bitter end; and yet, it is also here that people’s ability to be quietly heroic in the only important way, in our treatment of each other, is laid bare. It’s an astonishing novel about some specific issues of our time, namely the Iraq War and the GFC, and about those wider questions concerning being human and the meaning of art.

Now, however, I’m kicking myself, because this book deserves a wider audience than I’ve seen it getting – and, unfortunately, its turn came up on my reading pile at the slowest time of year for blog reading. It’s a time when readers might peruse various “best-of” lists, but, at least as I’ve observed in previous years, pay less attention to more serious posts. This is a real shame, because both Rodney Hall and this, his latest book, deserve some real attention. It’s a book that will pay the reader who likes to take time to ponder in spades.

Lisa (ANZLitLovers) also enjoyed this book.

Rodney Hall
A stolen season
Sydney: Picador, 2018
342pp.
ISBN: 9781760555443

(Review copy courtesy Pan Macmillan Australia)

Monday musings on Australian literature: ABC RN presenters name their top 2018 reads

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In recent years, I’ve shared ABC RN presenters’ suggested summer reads, but this year I’m sharing Best Reads of 2018, from the two presenters of The Bookshelf program, and some of their guests. For more lists, and related links, you can check out the webpages for their December 7 and December 14 radio shows.

Trent Dalton, Boy swallows universeNicole Abadee (literary consultant and books writer for AFR Magazine and Good Weekend):

Trent Dalton (author of Boy swallows universe):

  • Haruki Murakami, Colourless Tsukuru Tazaki (Japanese)
  • Geraldine Brooks, People of the book (Australian-American) (an older book, and one I read before blogging)
  • Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove (American) (another older book, as I’m sure you know)

Kate Evans (presenter on The Bookshelf): 

  • Melissa Lucashenko, Too much lip (Australian)(on my TBR – I’ll get to it soon)
  • Michael Ondaatje, Warlight (Canadian)
  • Imogen Hermes Gowar, The mermaid and Mrs Hancock (English)
  • Peter Cochrane, The making of Martin Sparrow (Australian)
  • Tayari Jones, An American marriage (American) (Kate of booksaremyfavouriteandbest identifies this as the book which appeared most frequently in the 37 best-of-2018 lists she analysed)

Amelia Lush (Stella Prize judge, and head of Children and Young Adult programming for the Sydney Writers’ Festival):

  • Rebecca Makkai, The great believers (American)
  • Tara Westover, Educated (American) (A memoir highly recommended by my Californian friend)
  • Maria Turmarkin, Axiomatic (Australian) (Highly recommended by Brother Gums)

Cassie McCullagh (presenter on The Bookshelf): 

  • Rachel Cusk, Kudos (Canadian-born English)
  • Sally Rooney, Normal people (Irish)
  • Tim Winton, The shepherd’s hut (Australian)
  • Peter Cochrane, The making of Martin Sparrow (Australian)
  • Tayari Jones, An American marriage (American)

Shaun Prescott (author of The town)

  • Dag Solstad, T Singer (Norwegian)
  • Jamie Marina Lau, Pink Mountain on Locust Island (Australian)
  • Olivia Laing, Crudo (English)

OK, so not many of these are Australian, but for this particular Christmas list I relax my rules to focus on Australian readers (at the ABC!)

Anyhow, a few observations. Of the 23 top picks, there are only three duplications: Peter Cochrane’s The making of Martin Sparrow; Tayari Jones’ An American marriage; and Rebecca Makkai’s The great believers. Only one of these is Australian, Cochrane’s historical novel set in the early days of the colony. This lack of duplication is probably not surprising given all the books that are out there for us to read.

Just two of the books (unless I’ve missed something) are non-fiction – Tara Westover’s Educated and Maria Tumarkin’s Axiomatic. Again, probably not surprising.

And, most of the books are anglo – Australian, American, English, Canadian, Irish – with just two that aren’t, Murakami from Japan, and Solstad from Norway.  We really aren’t, it seems to me, very good at reading translated books from other cultures – and I admit that my reading diet is light on in that area too. Only one, as far as I can tell, is by an indigenous Australian.

Anyhow, I hope you have found this at least a bit interesting!

What ONE book would you recommend from your 2018 reads for the rest of us to read over the holidays?

Monday musings on Australian literature: ACT’s literary awards

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Last week, I attended the ACT Writers Centre’s Christmas Party and Awards Night. It was a lovely, relaxed affair – just the sort I like. Not too much ceremony, but much good will and conviviality. I loved seeing writers, and others from our little territory’s literary community, mingle with each other, commending each other’s achievements. I could name drop, but fear forgetting a special name as you always do in situations like this, and I could describe some fan-girl moments, but that, too, could be fraught. So, instead, I’ll just say what a very enjoyable night it was (helped along by delicious local wines from Eden Road Wines, who do a great job in Canberra sponsoring arts organisations, including, in my experience, the ACT Writers Centre and Musica Viva. Thanks Eden Road – and your wines are delicious.)

And now, the awards – which come in two strands.

ACT Book of the Year Award

This award, “for excellence in literature”, is supported by the ACT Government, and supports ACT-based writers and writing. It “recognises quality contemporary literary works including fiction, non-fiction and poetry by ACT-based authors published in the previous calendar year”. The winner receives $10,000, with any highly commended book receiving $2,000, and the shortlisted books earning $1,000 each. Not the biggest awards in town, but we are a small jurisdiction. I should note too that “ACT-based” can include residents outside the ACT who “can specifically and strongly demonstrate an ACT-based arts practice”.

Paul Collis, Dancing homeThis year’s winner and runners-up were:

  • Paul Collis’ Dancing home (Winner), which also won the David Unaipon Award in 2017, and has been reviewed by Lisa. I have it on order.
  • Merlinda Bobis’ Accidents of composition (Highly commended)
  • Jackie French’s Facing the flame (Shortlist)
  • Omar Musa’s Millefiori (Shortlist)
  • Rachel Sanderson’s The Space Between (Shortlist)

ACT Writers Centre Awards

These sponsored awards are managed by the ACT Writers Centre.

Marjorie Graber-McInnis Short Story Award

Amanda McLeod’s Loyal Animals

June Shenfield Poetry Award

Natalie Cook’s Incursion, Extinctions.

The 2018 Anne Edgeworth Young Writers’ Fellowship

Gemma Killen. She will receive support from the Trust to help her develop her skills in writing for the screen with a focus on comedy scripts.

Anne Edgeworth’s son announced that, next year, the award will change emphasis, slightly, from “young” to “emerging”, recognising that new older writers also need support.

Publishing Awards

Kirsty Budding, paper cutsThese awards were established in 2004 “to recognise, reward and promote writing by ACT region authors that has been published by small publishers or been self-published”.

  • Fiction: Kirsty Budding, Paper cuts: Comedic and satirical monologues for audition or performance (Blemish Books, who also published Nigel Featherstone’s three novellas). Budding lives and works in Canberra as a theatre producer and teacher. She has been shortlisted and/or won several playwright awards, including being a semi-finalist in the 2017 ScreenCraft Short Screenplay Contest, Los Angeles.
  • Non-fiction: Robert Lehane’s Verity (Australian Scholarly Publishing). This is a biography of Canberra pioneer, Verity Hewitt, who, among other things, established a bookshop in Canberra in 1938. She also, apparently, taught Gough Whitlam, and was an activist in the peace movements of the 1950s to 70s.
  • Children’s: Maura Pierlot’s Trouble in Tune Town (Little Steps Books). This is Pierlot’s first children’s picture book, and it has been gaining recognition in awards – Best Illustrated Children’s E-Book in the Independent Publisher Book Awards (IPPY) 2018 (Joint Winner); and a finalist in the Children’s Picture Book (Hardcover Fiction) in the International Book Awards 2018
  • Poetry: Paul Cliff, A constellation of abnormalities (Puncher and Wattman). Cliff is a poet, playwright and editor whose has been published for over 30 years, and has won or ben shortlisted for several awards including the Mattara Poetry Prize, the David Campbell and Rosemary Dobson Poetry Prizes.

Full details of the awards, with all the shortlisted writers can be found on the ACT Writers Centre website.

Congratulations to all the winning and shortlisted authors, and a big thanks to the ACT Writers Centre for inviting me to the event.