Sun Jung, My name is Gucci (#BookReview)

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Some reading synchronicities – those coincidental connections that happen between books we read in a short period of time – are zeitgeist-related. For example, grief is not my go-to, but it is a common theme in contemporary writing so it’s not entirely remarkable that I have written three reviews since January about books focused on grief. What is remarkable is that, in the same period, I have read two books, written nearly 80 years apart, which are told from the perspective of dogs. This surely takes synchronicity to a whole new level – wouldn’t you agree?

A canine perspective is, however, where the synchronicity ends, because Dusty (my review) is told third person through two main voices, Dusty’s and his owner’s, and Dusty is very much a dog. He has no knowledge beyond what he knows as a dog. Gucci, in Sun Jung’s My name is Gucci, is something very different. Not only is he the novel’s sole first person narrator, but he has been reincarnated many times, so has a wealth of knowledge and experience way beyond that of a typical dog. Indeed, as he tells us, he is a “sage”, and an erudite one at that. Now, before you click away, thinking non-human narrators and ideas of reincarnation are not for you, do read on, because Jung makes this work, creating a story that is not only charming and often delightfully humorous, but also thoughtful about life and the connections we make.

Gucci is a Dalmation-like bitzer. At the book’s opening, he is five-years-old and living in a Singaporean animal shelter. He’d given up ever being rescued, when, seemingly out of the blue, “she” appears, and whisks him off to Sydney. Is this destiny? This never-named she, it turns out, has been connected to Gucci, in earlier lives, through their inyeon. Inyeon, the book’s glossary explains, is “Karmic relation or destiny”, but in fact our two are connected through the rarer form of “perpetual-inyeon”. This is “a persistently recurring Karmic relation between two beings through their numerous past lives”, one built on the understanding that “interactions must be mutually beneficial”. Gucci tells us:

I have been reborn three times during her present life; interestingly, and quite unusually, all three rebirth were dogs and all had one absolute karmic duty – to help her to collect and rekindle the shattered smithereens of inyeon that she had long lost.

Notwithstanding this idea of inyeon, the obvious question is, of course, why choose a dog as narrator. Telling a story through a non-human character is not only not easy, it’s a risk, so why? I don’t know Jung’s reasons, but the driver must surely be that unusual narrators have something useful to offer – tone, maybe, or experience or a different way of thinking. Gucci meets all of these. He has some painful things to share about her life, but does so in a lighter tone, which feels more acceptable from a non-human character. Further, as a dog who has experienced the world differently from humans, he can offer different insights into her experiences, not to mention those of humans in general. And, finally, he can illuminate important things about human-animal relationships.

“nothing is absurd”

My name is Gucci is not a hard read, but it does require concentration because we move back and forth in time, in her life, as it intersects with Gucci’s lives – as Nari, the Jindo dog, who dies in an accident when she is 9; as General, the Sapsal-cross dog, who was forced to work as a fighting dog, and is euthanased when she is 13; and of course as Gucci in her present life, now helping her confront and perhaps reconcile the traumas of her past. She had a difficult childhood in Korea, which is where Nari and General know her. The product of an adulterous union between a married man and a melancholic young woman (jageun umma), she is removed from this birth mother when she is 4 years old to live with her father’s wife (keun umma). Keun umma accepts her, with kindness and love, but not so keun umma’s mother, the “old hyena”, who is cruel to this “filthy child” brought into her home.

The time shifting, then, occurs between her past life in Korea, with Nari and General, and her current life in Sydney’s Kings Cross and Darlinghurst, where she is married to an Irishman, but haunted by her past. It’s no surprise to Gucci that she is a “horror novelist … [of] … spinechilling and gory urban mythologies”. In telling his and her story, Gucci is often insouciant if not downright playful, but he is also wise and philosophical, as he guides her and us through the challenges of coping with past experiences which threaten to undermine the present.

Closely associated with this idea of past and present is that of “destiny”. It is a constant thread in the book, and it discomforted me a little, perhaps because as a Westerner, the idea of destiny doesn’t sit easily with my world view. However, if we reframe it to encompass the way past experiences impact present and future actions, then it works – for me, and for the book, where the idea of fate/destiny/luck is variously respected, or upended or foiled, or treated sceptically by her Irish husband. There’s no one answer – just perspective and tolerance for difference.

Much of this story is serious. Bad things happened to her in her childhood, and Gucci reflects on the hows and whys. Early on, she is ostracised at school because of her “impure heritage”. Thinking back to their Seoul home in the suburb of Itaewon, which means “village of strangers”, Gucci wonders “what is being strange or different? Different to what?” Why do humans demonise, or make fun of, those who are different? My name is Gucci is full of good questions and wise ideas, but they are not laboured. Instead, Gucci keeps the story moving forward, with warmth and compassion, leavened by humour that is, at times, lightly satirical. There is a delightful scene when she takes her young Irish boyfriend to Korea, and, after a boozy night they go out for a “hangover cure” breakfast:

Bleary-eyed and with a severe hangover, he could not believe his misfortune as he stared at the abalone congee bowl.

Finally, there are the stories about human-animal relationships. Some of the funniest scenes in the book come from these, such as the Kings Cross apartment dog-wars, between dog-lovers and dog-haters. But there are tough stories too, like the sport of dog-fighting which destroys General’s life. This book pays tribute to the importance of our relationships with our animals.

Early on, Gucci forestalls our potential scepticism about his story by claiming that “if you look at everything in the world as connected by the complex web of inyeon, nothing is absurd”. Well, I have a high tolerance for the absurd, anyhow, but even if I didn’t, Gucci is such a delightful guide that I was in for the duration. If you want to read something that’s meaningful but doesn’t weigh you down, try this one.

Sun Jung
My name is Gucci: A dog’s story
Melbourne: Transit Lounge, 2024
254pp.
ISBN: 9781923023178

(Review copy courtesy Transit Lounge, via Scott Eathorne, Quikmark Media)

Monday musings on Australian literature: on 1924: 1, Bookstall, again

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During 2022 and 2023, I wrote a series of posts on Australian literature as it was read, and thought about, a century earlier, in 1922 and 1923. Last year, I researched 1924, with a view to doing the same, and in fact heralded the upcoming 1924 series, but didn’t end up writing any posts. This was partly because many of the concerns were the similar to those of 1923, and partly because other ideas overtook me. But there were some interesting things said, so, nearly a quarter of the way through 2025, I’ve decided to write at least a couple of posts relating to 2024, starting with the Bookstall Company’s Bookstall series of Australian fiction.

This series of cheap paperbacks of Australian novels, as I have posted before, were introduced to the Australian market in 1904. I featured them in posts on 1922 and 1923, and am here updating us with 1924’s output. The series continued to serve its purpose, it seems, of supporting Australian writers as well as of providing reading matter at an affordable price. The Queenslander, introducing two new books in the series, started its brief article on June 7 with:

Australian novelists owe a great deal to the New South Wales Bookstall Company, which, during the last few years, has published more than 200 novels by Australian writers. 

Sydney’s The Labor Daily made a similar comment on December 16.

As far as I can tell from the research I did, publication did slow down with significantly fewer books published in 1924 than in 1923. Here is what I found.

  • Roy Bridges, By mountain tracks
  • Ernest Osborne, The copra trader
  • S.W. Powell, The trader of Kameko: South Seas
  • Lilian M. Pyke, The harp of life
  • W. Sabelberg, The key of mystery
  • H.E. Wickham, The great western road

So, just 6 books, compared with 20 in 1923, and only one by a woman. (There may have been a few more, but it’s these six that kept popping up in my searches.) Most are adventures of some sort and most feature a “love interest”.

Bushranger stories were still popular at this time, even though the worst of the bushranger era had ended by the 1880s. Both Roy Bridges’ By mountain tracks and Wickham’s The great western road belong to this genre. That said, Bridges’ book is described in The Queenslander (7 June) as “a story associated with the Kelly gang, but the theme generally is that of a romantic love episode”.

Two of the books, those by Pyke and Sabelberg, seem to be contemporary stories, Pyke’s being a tangled story about a waif rescued from the arms of its dead mother on a Queensland beach, and Sabelberg’s a mystery/thriller.

Adventures in the South Seas were apparently making a come-back around this time, with Jack McLaren (who appeared in my 1923 post), Ernest Osborne and S.W. Powell all setting books there. Hobart’s World (12 February) wrote of Powell’s novel as being “full of incident and adventure, and aglow with the rich color of the South Seas. A good shilling’s worth.” This latter point was frequently mentioned in reviews of Bookstall books. Indeed the World, in the same article, said of Wickham’s novel that

“Most of the characters in the book are well-drawn, and convincing, and there are humorous episodes to relieve the tragedies, and compensate for the author’s rather marked tendency to waste words in trite moralisings, and in a too-conscious elaboration of dialogue. Just the same, it is a marvellous shilling’s worth.”

Most reviewers of these books understood their intention as escapist reads or, what we would call today, commercial fiction, and wrote about them within that context. They either praised the works – with one, in fact, describing Osborne’s novel as “brilliantly written” – or, where they were critical, they tempered it with this understanding, as in the Powell example above. However, a report in the Murray Pioneer and Australian River Record (5 December) was not so generous. Sabelberg’s The key of mystery, it said, “is a crude murder story, crudely written”; Powell’s The trader of Kameko, “is a story, with no literary merit, of a white man, two brown girls and a hurricane”; and Wickham’s The great western road “is a story of the early gold rushes in N.S.W. of the same crude character as the other two”. Of course, reviewers do pitch their writing to their audience. Perhaps readers of the Murray Pioneer and Australian River Record had more refined tastes, and more money to spend, and our writer recognised that?

Some newspaper articles noted that some of these writers had already developed their writing skills in other forms. Sabelberg and Wickham, for example, are described as established, successful short story writers, and Lilian Pyke as a writer of “capital” stories for boys and girls – all of which proves, I guess, the point about Bookstall’s role in supporting Australian writers. How better to cut your teeth as a novelist than with a company like this?

And I will leave 1924 on this point. Life has been very busy this last week … so I have not been able to pay as much attention to reading and my blog as I’d like, but I do hope to post a review this week.

Stella Prize 2025 Longlist announced

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Last year the Stella Prize longlist announcement took place on a Monday, gazumping that week’s Monday Musings. This year it’s a Tuesday, and it was again streamed online from the Adelaide Festival Writers Week …

As I say every year, I don’t do well at having read the Stella Prize longlist at the time of its announcement. In recent years the most I’ve read has been two (in 2019). Last year I’d read none at the time, but have read one since. This year, I have read one of the longlist (see below). I have read 8 of the 12 winners to date, which means I am falling behind! It’s not that I necessarily disagree with the winners, but just that my reading has been leading me in other directions.

In Stella’s spirit of keeping their judging panels fresh, none of this year’s judges were on last year’s panel, though some have judged before. This year’s panel comprises Gudanji/Wakaja woman, educator and author Debra Dank; teacher, interviewer/podcaster, and critic Astrid Edwards; writer and photographer Leah-Jing McIntosh; Sudanese–Australian media presenter and writer, Yassmin Abdel-Magied; and journalist and author with a special focus on social policy, Rick Morton. Astrid Edwards was the chair of the panel, and made the announcement.

The longlist

Here is the list, in alphabetical order by author, which is also how they were presented:

  • Jumaana Abdu, Translations (novel)
  • Manisha Anjali, Naag Mountain (poetry)
  • Melanie Cheng, Burrow (novel, my review)
  • Mantilla Chingaipe, Black convicts: How slavery shaped Australia (nonfiction)
  • Michelle de Kretser, Theory and practice (novel, on my TBR, kimbofo’s review)
  • Dylin Hardcastle, A language of limbs (novel)
  • Emily Maguire, Rapture (novel, my CWF Sessions 2 and 3)
  • Amy McQuire, Black witness: The power of Indigenous media: A family story from Gaza (nonfiction)
  • Samah Sabawi , Cactus pear for my beloved (nonfiction)
  • Mykaela Saunders, Always will be (short stories)
  • Inga Simpson, The thinning (novel) (Brona’s review)
  • Cher Tan, Peripatetic: Notes on (un)belonging (nonfiction)

So, seven fiction (including one short story collection), four nonfiction and one poetry collection, this year. You can read about the longlist, including comments by the judges at the Stella website.

Prior to the announcement, I pre-loaded this post with 15 potential longlistees, as a little test to myself on how many I might identify of the 12. I picked only three, partly because I hadn’t heard of some of the books the judges listed and partly because I didn’t know a lot about many of the others.

As always, I am not going to question the selection. The Stella is a diverse prize that aims to encompass a wide range of forms and styles, including some I don’t necessarily chase, and I haven’t read widely enough from 2024’s output, anyhow. But I have read one here, and gave a couple of the others to family members at Christmas. One was Rapture and it was loved. I’m keen to read the novels and the short story collection, in particular.

Last year there was an interesting panel discussion between the judges, but I don’t know whether there was one of not this year, because the YouTube link dropped out just as Astrid Edwards was finishing the list. Darn it.

Each of the longlisted authors receives $1000 in prize money, donated by the Copyright Agency’s Cultural Fund. The winer will receive $60,000. There were over 180 submissions this year.

“Literary prizes are subjective beasts, but I assure you, the works on this year’s longlist are remarkable.” Astrid Edwards

The shortlist will be announced on 8 April, and the winner on 23 May. You can seen more details on the Stella 2024 page.

Any comments?

Monday musings on Australian literature: Forgotten writers 10, Ruby Mary Doyle

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Unlike my last forgotten writer, Dulcie Deamer, today’s writer, though a prolific contributor to newspapers in her day, has slipped into the shadows. Neither Wikipedia nor the Australian dictionary of biography (ADB) contain articles for her, but the AustLit database does. As with many of my Forgotten Writers articles, I researched and posted a versions of this on the Australian Women Writers’ site.

Ruby Mary Doyle

Ruby Mary Doyle (1887-1943) wrote short stories and serialised novels, newspaper articles including travel and nature pieces, and plays, mostly publishing as Ruby Doyle or Ruby M. Doyle. Much of her writing was published in Fairfax’s weekly magazine, The Sydney Mail. By the 1930s she had, says AustLit, gained a reputation as a writer of some standing. She was also active in the Lyceum Club and the Pioneer Club in Sydney. And yet, there are no articles for her in Wikipedia or the Australian Dictionary of Biography.

Doyle was born on the 20 February 1887 in Gunnedah, New South Wales, to Joseph McCormick Doyle, a bank manager for the Commercial Bank, and Annie (née Hooke). She was the first of six children. In 1935, in an article titled “The making of the writer”, Doyle wrote of how she came to writing:

As a child, when I walked through the bush, well behind the family party, every tree seemed an enchanted castle. Birds, butterflies, flowers talked, and I understood them. Imagination — that blessed gift from the gods — had come to me from every side of my family, and finally led me, whether I would or not, into the realm of writing.

According to Kingston, of the Dungog Historical Society, her first published serial was The Dragon, which appeared in The Sydney Mail from 4 June 1913, and was later published in book form as The mystery of the hills. Promoting the book form, which was published in 1919, The World’s News wrote that:

Those who love a story which is thoroughly and typically Australian and of the country will enjoy this tale of love and adventure … The “mystery” we shall not, of course, say anything about, except that it has to do with men who defy the law and have a chief, who is a man of importance. There are several love stories, and they have the usual course, and there is quite a fund of information as to how we Australians live in the country, and how we manage to enjoy ourselves there. 

This little piece says much about how Australia saw itself. “How we manage to enjoy ourselves there [ie “in the country”]” suggests that Australia was well on the way to urbanisation, but fascinated by its bush self.

Further stories and serialisations appeared, including The winning of Miriam Heron in The Sydney Mail in 1918, which was published in book form by Edwards Dunlop in 1924. Announcing this new serial in 1918, The Sydney Mail wrote:

She [Doyle] has already contributed to the ‘Mail,’ and has disclosed literary and dramatic ability of a high order. It is gratifying to note that she shows no disposition to ‘write herself out.’ On the contrary, ‘The Winning of Miriam Heron’ reveals that she has mastered the art of construction, and thus gives her readers a better chance than previously to fully appreciate her literary powers.

From 1924 to 1926, Ruby travelled overseas a few times – to the United Kingdom, the continent, Canada and America – during which time she regularly submitted travel articles to the Dungog Chronicle, which, according to that paper, “were reprinted in many country papers throughout the State.”

Doyle wrote for local papers through the 1920s and 1930s. AustLit lists over 30 works of hers published over this time. She also tried her hand at playwriting. Kingston writes that her play The Family Tree came second in a competition at the Independent Theatre, Sydney, in 1933, and that the following year, The Man from Murrumbidgee, was produced at the Kursaal Theatre, also in Sydney. I believe these are the same play, given The Man from Murrumbidgee is about a status-seeking wife who tries to find “a worthy ancestor” on the family tree.

Doyle’s writing reflects the versatility of the working writer. Her short stories dealt largely with domestic subjects, while her serialised novels included historical stories about the colonial days, and romantic adventure stories. Her non-fiction focused particularly on nature, travel and local history, rather than on social or political commentary. Many of her local history pieces drew on her own family’s long history in the region, and include some delightful touches of humour. For example, she describes a pioneer family (hers it seems), coming out to Australia in 1828 with various things, including merino sheep and

rolls and rolls of beautiful silks, Mr. Hooke having an idea that he would be able to deal successfully in such merchandise. It proved only a supposition, and for the rest of her life Mrs Hooke had a marvellous collection of silks from which her dresses were made. 

There is also some recognition of the original people of the land. Writing in The Sydney Mail 1931 on the town of Gresford, she says that:

Most of the homes in the vicinity bear English and Welsh names — Norwood, Clevedon, Goulston, Camyr ‘Allyn, Caergule, Penshurst, Tre vallyn, etc. The river, named Paterson by the white man, was called Yimmang by the aborigines; one of our poets has written a very beautiful poem, “Ode to the Yimmang,” in which he extols its beauty.

Ruby Doyle was regularly written up in the local Dungog Chronicle, clearly being of interest to the community. She went to England, again, in 1935, planning to be away for two or three years. On 1 March, the Dungog Chronicle,reported on a farewell for this “gifted novelist”, and named Flora Eldershaw – one half of the M. Barnard Eldershaw collaboration – as a co-guest at the event. This suggests Doyle was known to the literati of her time. Doyle died in England in 1943, having never returned home again. A small obituary appeared in various local newspapers, including The Gloucester Advocate (see under Sources). The obituary noted her three published works, but also commented on her writing overall, commenting in particular that

a keen observer of nature, she had the gift of translating her thoughts on paper in an easy readable way.

The piece I posted for the Australian Women Writers Challenge is titled “The flame” (linked below). It is an intriguing story about a disgruntled wife, and invites – particularly from modern eyes – a variety of readings. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Sources

  • Miss Ruby Doyle, The Gloucester Advocate, 12 January 1943 [Accessed: 14 January 2025]
  • Ruby Doyle, “The flame“, Sydney Mail, 24 July 1935 [Accessed: 3 February 2025]
  • Ruby M. Doyle, AustLit [Accessed: 3 Feb 2025]
  • Maureen Kingston, “Was Ruby Doyle our first local travel writer?”, Dungog Chronicle, 25 August 2021 [Accessed via the NLA eResources service: 3 February 1924]

Six degrees of separation, FROM Prophet song TO …

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It’s the first Saturday in March so here we are again at Six Degrees time. My favourite season of autumn – except that it leads to winter – has officially started. It’s sunny, warm and the leaves are just starting to turn. I hope the weather is lovely wherever you are. Now, I’ll get onto it … but first, if you don’t know how the #SixDegrees meme works, please check Kate’s blog – booksaremyfavouriteandbest.

The first rule is that Kate sets our starting book. This month, it’s a book I wish I’d read – as it’s by an Irish writer and won the 2023 Booker Prize, Paul Lynch’s Prophet song – but of course I haven’t. GoodReads starts its description with, “A fearless portrait of a society on the brink as a mother faces a terrible choice”. On the Booker Prize website, there’s a reading guide for the book, which includes this question:

‘You need to relax, the GNSB are not the Stasi, they are just applying a little pressure, that is all,’ Larry tells Eilish at an early point in the story (page 28). Where does the irony lie in this statement with references to the Stasi, the secret police force of East Germany? And to what extent do you think the characters cling to the belief that a country as civilised as theirs could never descend into such a terrifying situation?

Anna Funder's Stasiland bookcover

Well! Having considered a number of ways to go, I decided that here was the link for me, the Stasi! So, I am linking to Anna Funder’s nonfiction book, Stasiland (my review), for which she interviewed several Stasi men, as well as other East Germans who suffered at Stasi hands. It’s an unforgettable book.

And, it won the Samuel Johnson Prize in 2004, now the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction, which, according to the website, “rewards excellence in non-fiction writing, bringing the best in intelligent reflection on the world to new readers”. Twenty years after Funder, in 2024, the winner was Richard Flanagan’s Question 7 (my review), which I described in my post as “a humane book, a book about who we are and how we are, about what we do to each other and why”

Hartmann Wallis, Who said what exactly

But, subject matter is not my link. Instead, I’m linking from Flanagan’s book about a question to a book whose title is a question, Hartmann Wallis’ Who said what, exactly (my review), though I admit there’s no question mark on the cover. Hartmann Wallis is one of the pseudonyms used by painter, printmaker and writer, Robin Wallace-Crabbe. Wikipedia says he uses this pseudonym to muse on subjects like “art, love/lust, loneliness and animals; usually with a tone of disdain regarding cruelty toward animals and our fellow man”. This is worthy of a link, but so is the fact that his book was illustrated by Phil Day. I have reviewed a few books where Day’s hand has been, including his own, A chink in the daisy chain.

However, I was surprised and delighted to notice that Phil Day is acknowledged as the artist of the beautiful rabbit on the cover of Melanie Cheng’s The burrow (my review). I assume it’s the same Phil Day – I’ve not been able to confirm it – and am making him, and The burrow, my link.

Book cover

Now, I must move away from Australian authors as I shouldn’t be completely parochial, as good as our authors are! So, my next link is to another book in which a mother grieves for a child, albeit the child is 11, not a baby as in The burrow. The book is Maggie O’Farrell’s Hamnet (my review).

And finally, ok, I’m sorry, but I’m going to do it, I am returning to my first author, Anna Funder and her book Wifedom (my review), which does in non-fiction, what O’Farrell does in fiction, which is to bring into the light, the forgotten wife of a famous, much-lauded writer, Eileen O’Shaughnessy, wife of George Orwell.

So, five of my six books are by Australian writers, but their subject matter and settings roam widely and across some big questions. Four of my six books are by women. I guess there is a loose link back from last book to Prophet song, in that Lynch’s book is dystopian as are some of Orwell’s works.

And, have you read Prophet song and, regardless, what would you link to?

Andra Putnis, Stories my grandmothers didn’t tell me (#BookReview)

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Cover

Local writer Andra Putnis’ book, Stories my grandmothers didn’t tell me: Two women’s journeys from war-torn Europe to a new life in Australia, was my reading group’s February read. Not only was it highly recommended by two members who had read it, but we were told the author would be happy to attend our meeting if we chose it. That was an offer too good to pass up, so we scheduled it.

We’ve had a few authors attend our meetings over the years, and it has always been worthwhile. Yes, it risks constraining discussion if people have any reservations about the book, but that has never really been a problem, either because there haven’t been serious reservations or because the value of having the author present has far outweighed any perceived impact on free discussion. In Putnis’ case, the story is so powerful and so well-told that it was unlikely there’d be any reservations that wouldn’t turn into questions about why or how she wrote her story.

“hidden pasts, still very much present”

Stories my grandmothers didn’t tell me is a family biography centring on the author’s two Latvian-born grandmothers, her maternal Grandma Milda (1913-1997) and paternal Nanna Aline (1924-2021). Teenage Aline was separated from her parents around 1942 to go serve in Germany’s war-time labour force. Meanwhile, in late 1944, with the war ending and the Soviet army looking set to return, 7-months pregnant Milda left Latvia with her parents and 18-month old son, enduring a tough, desperate journey. Both women ended up in UNRRA-managed Displaced Persons camps in Germany, where they experienced years of hardship before arriving in Australia in late 1949/1950. Milda, and later Aline, settled in Newcastle in the early 1950s, and met there through its tight-knit Latvian migrant community.

That’s the rough outline, but of course their stories – what they endured – are far more complicated, and Putnis wanted to understand. She told us that as a young child she had a sense of Latvia as almost an unreal fairytale place with beautiful forests, music and dancing, but she had also sensed, through family murmurs, a darker side, one that encompassed sadness and pain not only about Latvia but also about the family’s own story. She likened it to being on a boat, where you can see the surface but have no idea of what lies in the deeps below. She feared, as a granddaughter, that it wasn’t her place to go there, and worried about upsetting people. However, she did go there because she wanted to know and because Nanna Aline was willing. But, she said, she was always cognisant of just how far a granddaughter – even an older one – could, or should, go.

“moving between darkness and light”

I have read several hybrid war-related biography/memoirs written by family members, and this one is as good as any of them. This is not only because of the power of the story, and the honesty with which it is told – but also because of the structure Putnis uses. It is told chronologically, which is logical, but through the voices of Milda and Aline interspersed with those of others including, of course, Putnis’s own. I wanted to know about this and Putnis was happy to explain.

The structure was driven by Aline who told her story chronologically. She had thought deeply about and “understood the arc of her life”, said Putnis. So, with this in hand, Putnis started to piece Milda’s story – which was gathered less systematically – along the same lines. The challenge came in making the “weave” work, in getting the balance right, between them and their stories, and the wider historical, community and family framework.

Putnis worked on her book for nearly 20 years – with the occasional gap when life took over. Aline lived a long life so Putnis was able to spend a lot of time with her. Aline had also had the toughest life, particularly in terms of her personal choices and circumstances. Our hearts went out to her. Milda, on the other hand, died when Putnis was 19 years old, before she started working on her book. However, Milda had lived for nearly a decade with Putnis’s family, so Putnis had spent a lot of time talking with her, getting to know her. Putnis enhances both stories with information gleaned from conversations with other close family members, from secondary reading, and from primary research through letters, in archives, and so on.

The result is a coherent story of these two women told from more than one perspective, which has the effect of varying the intensity as we read – of mixing the light and the dark – and of enhancing authenticity, because the perspectives reinforce each other. It’s sophisticated and highly readable.

“the world is in tears” (Aline’s father)

It is a powerful and often heart-rending story, and it is to Putnis’s credit that she is able to convey both the individual personalities of her very different grandmothers and the universality of their experiences. Their experience of living under multiple invasions is both personal but, as we know too devastatingly well, political and general. Same for their experience of living in camps for years – of having your life on hold while you just survive. And for their experience of being migrants – “reffos” – in 1950s Australia. The negatives abound, with any positives achieved being hard fought. It’s a lesson in how ordinary lives are changed irrevocably by political actions way out of their control.

So, the book raises many questions – about the past and about what is happening now. Putnis also specifically raises the issue of protecting children, and I wanted to know about this too, because, given our knowledge of intergenerational trauma, how do you protect children from horror without laying them more open to ongoing trauma within? There is no easy answer, we concluded, but awareness and consideration about where to draw the line can only help.

Finally, Stories my grandmothers didn’t tell me, is fundamentally a book about the importance – and limits – of stories. Early on Putnis talks to Aline about her project, and Aline is clear about her intentions:

Alright then, I don’t remember everything. But I have my own point of view. Some old Latvian women go on about how wonderful things were before the war … You heard these stories? Well, it was not always like that. Not all the boys were good and I was not as kind to my māte [mother] as I should have been. If you want that story, you are talking to the wrong grandma.

Aline was brave, and this is a brave book about survival that doesn’t shy away from the tough and sad stories. But, more importantly, it conveys something about stories, which is that individual stories are very important, but they are not the whole story. In other words, the more stories we have the better picture we have – of history, and of the complexity of humanity that makes us who and what we are.

Putnis concludes with Aline’s funeral, and shares the words she spoke, which also encapsulate this book:

Nanna taught me nothing less than what it means to be human, to earn the grace and wisdom that come from surviving darkness and celebrating light.

I’d like to tell more stories about the book, including about Milda and the strong woman she was, but this post is long enough, so I’ll just encourage you to read the book for yourselves.

Andra Putnis
Stories my grandmothers didn’t tell me: Two women’s journeys from war-torn Europe to a new life in Australia
Crows Nest: Allen & Unwin, 2024
292pp.
ISBN: 9781761471322

Monday musings on Australian literature: The Richell Prize for Emerging Writers

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Back in 2014, I wrote a Monday Musings post on Unpublished Manuscript Awards. Since then, more of these awards have appeared, including the Finlay Lloyd 20/40 Publishing Prize (my posts), which made its first award in 2023. Before that, however – and not long after my 2014 post – came The Richell Prize for Emerging Writers.

Those of you who follow Australian publishing closely will recognise the name Richell. English-born Matt Richell was the CEO of Hachette Australia – and was well-recognised and loved for his support of Australian writing and writers. He died tragically in July 2014 due to a surfing accident.

The Richell Prize was launched in his memory in 2015. It is “open to unpublished writers of adult fiction and adult narrative non-fiction”. unusually, writers don’t need to have a full manuscript at the time of submission, but must intend to complete one. Richell’s widow, Hannah, explains it this way, “Unlike some prizes, we don’t ask for a completed manuscript. We simply ask for the first three chapters, a clear vision and your commitment to finishing your project”.The winner receives $10,000, and a year’s mentoring with one of Hachette Australia’s publishers. This usually ends in the work being published by Hachette, but not always.

Winners to date

  • 2015: Sally Abbott, Closing down (Hachette, 2017) (Lisa’s review)
  • 2016: Susie Greenhill, The clinking (Hachette, 2025)
  • 2017: Sam Coley, State Highway One (Hachette, 2020)
  • 2018: Ruth McIver, I shot the Devil (Hachette, 2020)
  • 2019: Else Fitzgerald, Nearly curtains (short story collection, published as Everything feels like the end of the world, Allen & Unwin, 2022, and subsequently shortlisted for the 2022 Aurealis Awards and the 2023 University of Southern Queensland Steele Rudd Award) (Brona’s review)
  • 2020: Aisling Smith, After the rain (Hachette, 2023)
  • 2021: Simone Jordan, Tell her she’s dreamin’ (Hachette, 2023)
  • 2022: Susannah Begbie, When trees fall without warning (published as The deed, Hachette, 2024)
  • 2023: Alex Sawyer, Rat Daniels (nothing published yet)
  • 2024: Myles McGuire, Stroke (nothing published yet)

As you can see, the majority have been published by Hachette, but not all, and the lead time varies quite a lot. In fact, prize partner, the Emerging Writers Festival, explains it a bit more on its webpage for the 2024 prize. It says that “Hachette Australia will work with the winning writer to develop their manuscript with first option to consider the finished work, and the shortlisted entries, for publication [my emph]”.

It then says that

To date [early 2024, I think], Hachette has published or contracted ten authors who have been discovered through this annual Prize, including Sally Abbott (2015 winner), Brodie Lancaster (2015 shortlist), Sam Coley (2017 winner), Julie Keys (2017 shortlist), Ruth McIver (2018 winner), Mandy Beaumont (2018 shortlist), Zaheda Ghani (2018 shortlist), Allee Richards (2019 shortlist), Aisling Smith (2020 winner) and Simone Amelia Jordan (2021 winner).

Hannah Kent, Burial Rites bookcover

In my original Monday Musings, I quoted Hannah Kent, who won the inaugural Writing Australia Unpublished Manuscript Award in 2011 for her hugely successful historical novel, Burial rites (my review), as saying, “these sorts of awards are so important. They help you get that foot in the door”.

And, it’s not only the winners who benefit. Long- and shortlistees also often benefit, as clearly happens with the Richell Prize. We can see this happening with long- and shortlisted published works, because we read the lists, see the books in the bookshops, and often buy them. But, we rarely know what happens to those who are listed for manuscript awards. Even if we see the long- and shortlists, the work may not be published for years, and if it is, may be published under a different title. Also, the promotion may not mention the listing. Sometimes, however, we do know, as we do with Lisa Kenway’s All you took from me (my post), because it is mentioned in the book’s promotion. And why not? Any award listing is a feather in the cap, and could give a book an edge with readers.

Unfortunately, like any awards, these unpublished manuscript awards don’t survive forever. I cannot, for example, find much about the inaugural Writing Australia Unpublished Manuscript Award that Hannah Kent won in 2011. And The Australian/Vogel Literary Award, which has long been recognised as one of Australia’s most prestigious unpublished manuscript awards, made its last award last year. It has been replaced, apparently, by The Australian Fiction Prize. It is still supported by The Australian newspaper, but now in partnership with the publisher, HarperCollins, rather than the Vogel’s Allen & Unwin. It remains an unpublished manuscript award, but there is now no age limit, and it excludes science fiction, young adult, poetry, plays, works for children. The prize still offers cash and publication.

Do you follow manuscript awards? If so, which ones most closely suit your interests?

Lisa Kenway, All you took from me (#GuestThoughts)

/ Whispering Gums / 20 Comments

With my Review TBR pile teetering on the brink, I decided to call in a favour from Mr Gums, and handed him Lisa Kenway’s debut novel, All you took from me, thinking it might be up his alley.

Now, a word about Mr Gums. He is an engineer by training, and not the world’s biggest reader. When he does read – in the past at least – his go-to has been Jane Austen (whose books he has read multiple times, including more than once in German) and other classics. However, with more time at his disposal since retirement, he has started reading a little more broadly. He likes to be “entertained”, not overly challenged in his reading. (Apparently, reading Mansfield Park in German is not challenging!) Life is challenging enough, he says. So, crime fiction seemed to be a good fit, and he’s been trying out several authors with varying success. Chris Hammer is a big hit. Garry Disher goes down pretty well too. Peter Temple not so much. He has also read non-Australian crime writers – English, and others, including, recently, a Japanese author (thanks to JacquiWine). As you can tell from his Austen love, he is more than happy to read women writers, and has crime by Dervla McTiernan and Shelley Burr, and recently, Dinuka McKenzie’s first novel. So, why not Lisa Kenway?

So, Lisa Kenway. According to the media release that came with my review copy, she is an Australian writer and anaesthetist. This debut novel, All you took from me, was “inspired by her longstanding fascination with memory and consciousness”. An earlier manuscript version was longlisted for Hachette’s Richell Prize for Emerging Writers in 2020 (out of over 800 submissions). That must have given her confidence to keep working on it, because here it is, published by Transit Lounge in 2024.

Anyhow, the novel is set in two places – the Blue Mountains (which I love) and Sydney. The protagonist, Clare Carpenter, is an anaesthetist – write what you know! – whose husband has died in a single-vehicle car accident which also caused her to lose her memory. Soon after, she senses she is being followed by a stranger. Why? Finding the answer becomes her mission, but it is hampered by her loss of memory. Can she reverse that? Of course nothing is simple, and the risks and threats mount. This novel is not Mr Gums’ (nor my) preferred type of crime, which is the police procedural. It is, instead, as the blurbs say, a psychological thriller.

Mr Gums was intrigued by this debut, but he had reservations. He particularly liked the set up – the protagonist as anaesthetist. It was different, and an interesting idea. He enjoyed reading the technical details about anaesthesia, and liked the attention paid to details in those parts of the story. (Like me, he enjoys it when novels teach him about a world he doesn’t know much about.) However, this is also where his main reservation came, because, scientifically trained himself, he found Clare’s behaviour hard to believe. The risks she took, her foray into unscientific ideas, lost him. Mr Gums, though, has not been in the position Clare found herself in. Perhaps, in the same desperate circumstances, he might try anything too?

All you took from me is told first person, and the voice rings true. Clare is articulate and intelligent, and honest, as she starts to uncover less pleasant things about herself. The novel opens in the hospital a month after the accident, with Clare starting to return to her – new – consciousness. From here, the plot picks up, becoming increasing dramatic and sensational, as you’d expect for its genre, with Clare’s shaky memory, and her attempts to recover it, underpinning much of the intrigue. There are the usual red herrings and misleading threads, which kept Mr Gums challenged as he tried to work out what was true and what wasn’t.

Overall, Kenway’s novel is not Mr Gums’ preferred crime genre. He prefers more dogged analysis in his crime to the stress and tension of a thriller. However, he did conclude that All you took from me was “strangely entertaining”, which suggests to me that Kenway’s debut should not be the last novel she writes. I’d love to know if anyone else has read it?

Lisa Kenway
All you took from me
Melbourne: Transit Lounge, 2024
328pp.
ISBN: 9781923023123

[Review copy courtesy Transit Lounge (via Scott Eathorne of Quikmark Media)]

Author Talk: The season with Helen Garner

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It is a measure of the love and respect readers have for Helen Garner that this event, held in the National Library of Australia’s 300-seat theatre, had a 200-strong waiting list. And, it was well worth booking early for.

The evening was emceed by Luke Hickey, the National Library’s Assistant Director-General Engagement. He started with a welcome, acknowledgement of country and an introduction of the participants, who were:

  • Helen Garner (my posts): multi-award winning author of novels, stories, screenplays and works of non-fiction.
  • Beejay Silcox: writer, literary critic and about-to-retire Artistic Director of Canberra Writers Festival.

The conversation

This was a joyful but engaged conversation that flowed easily, while gently getting to the nub of some great ideas.

Beejay started by reminding us that “Canberra” means “meeting place” and that for millennia people have met here to “talk about things that matter”. She then tried to define what Helen Garner means to us. She is a writer who destablises and discomforts us, who energises us, who provokes us but not for provocation’s sake. She’s a writer who doubts, is uncertain, and who, because of this, brings us along with her.

On writing The season

Beejay called The season a graceful book, a love letter from a grandmother to boys and men. Some see it as very different from her previous work, but Beejay was not so sure. What did Garner think?

Garner said this was the most fun writing she had done. It was an “extraordinary experience” and came at a time when she felt burnt out. Preparing her three diaries had involved many “squirmy 2ams”. She also saw it as her last chance to get close to a grandchild.

Contrary to her normal practice, which is not to ask permission, Garner had asked her grandson and his coach whether it would be ok for her to attend training sessions with a view to writing about the experience.

Beejay commented on Garner’s reference in the book to being an invisible older woman. Was it a superpower or curse. Oh, superpower, said Garner! She didn’t want to interview the players, just observe.

Garner didn’t know anything about teams, so she’d sit back, an invisible figure in her straw hat and overalls, and watch. The boys were, generally, oblivious of her presence, and had no sense of this being rude. She was fascinated by their behaviour versus that of girls, with which she is more familiar. They would dump their stuff any which way – bags, bikes, phones – and keep on walking to wherever they were going. Girls, by comparison, place their bikes, say, neatly against a tree. Women scan the territory, whereas these boys had tunnel vision, a “tremendous ability to concentrate” or focus.

She observed that during training the coach would exhort the boys to widen their field of vision. It was “thrilling to watch”. Garner conveyed such joy about watching the young men. I remember feeling the same about watching my son’s cricket team. Those boys were so enthusiastic, so sure, after getting out for a duck, that they’d hit that six next time. Their confidence was infectious.

On football, and writing about it

Garner admitted to being a Western Bulldogs fan, and talked about her love of footy. She “can’t stand it when it’s not footy season”, which drew some perhaps surprised but warm-hearted laughter from the audience.

Beejay spoke of Garner’s “narrative love of the game”, of her anchoring her writing about it in terms of writers like Blake, and Homeric epics, of her referencing “elemental” ideas like mercy, triumph, vengeance.

Garner talked about her introduction to the sport – her origin story as Beejay framed it – via the 1997 documentary Year of the dogs. It was a time of great change in the sport, and she was moved by the decisions made by some players to not chase the money.

While she knows the rules and understands the play, she will “never” understand the game, but doesn’t care. She didn’t want to take a position on football. Some expected her, for example, to take a feminist position, and explore the brutal aspects, but she wanted to glorify.

Beejay asked how hard it was to not write what people expected. Garner didn’t know how to write a polemical book about football. In fact, she struggled to turn her experience into a book. She started writing it in the past, but that gave it an historical feel. As soon as she changed to present tense, she knew she had her story.

Beejay asked her to read the opening two paragraphs:

I pull up at the kerb. I love this park they train in. I must have walked the figure-of-eight round its ovals hundreds of times, at dawn, in winter and summer, to throw the ball for Dozer, our red heeler-but he’s buried now, in the backyard, under the crepe myrtle near the chook pen.

The boy jumps out with his footy and trots away, bouncing. it. Boy? Look at him. He’s been playing with our suburban club since he was a tubby little eight-year-old; I have never paid more than token attention to his sporting life. But this year he’s in the Under-16s. The shoulders on him! He must be almost six feet tall. He’s the youngest of my three grand-children. The last, and there will be no more.

Beejay described this as a masterclass in writing. Everything is in these two paragraphs – relationships, rhythm of life, her sense of place, death.

Garner said, simply (modestly, some of us would say):

“What I’m good at is saying what happens”.

On Garner, the writer and grandmother

Garner loves being a grandmother, and got more laughs when she admitted that after three marriages she was no good at being married, but had found a place to be in the world. She sees the role of a grandmother as being “a servant”, that is, as serving the family, helping the family grow, being the backstop.

Beejay returned to her introduction of Garner as self-effacing, as a writer who doubts. In this book, she describes herself as “a bore”. Is this questioning of herself a whim, and what is the gap between the book she imagines and the one she creates.

Garner never has an idea of what her book is to be. She writes sentence by sentence. She talked about being “a small piece of shit”. While one husband told her he didn’t feel that way, she thinks most of us feel small, at least sometimes. They are valuable times; they balance “the insane moments of triumph”.

On values, lessons, manners

Garner loves football because the discipline of sport puts boundaries around the urge to fight. (She referenced the Iliad with its sense of enormous power). Garner and Beejay discussed a photo Garner loves of two footballers at a moment of defeat, with its Homeric sense of valour and duty, of intimacy, loss and pain. Garner sees these footballers as young, and perfect. She loves “noble postures of defeat” rather than Achilles-style roaring, bellowing triumph.

Garner thinks football can teach boys manners. There can be moral teaching, to not think of themselves and to trust each other .

Beejay also noted that The season is a love letter to volatile youth but is also about age. What did Garner mean by feeling envy. Was it of youth? Of boys doing things she couldn’t? Or related to the presentism of youth, and being unweighted by the past? A bit of all of this. Garner envies youth, its fearlessness. The discussion then turned to what happens to boys who are tender when young but are forced to harden when they get older. Garner hates “the clamp” that is put on emotion in boys.

For all the talk about youth envy, Garner also accepts her age. At 82, she is bothered that people try to deny her age, as in “you’re not old”!

Q & A

On boys and masculinity: a couple of questions/comments concerned this. One audience member thanked her for her “lovely writing” about boys compared to all the “toxic masculinity” talk that confronts them today. Garner hates that those two words – “toxic” and “masculinity” – are glued together, and that boys have to face it. Another questioner wondered how parents can help boys become the boys we’d like them to be. Garner shared an experience she had of Tim Winton calming his distraught 4-year-old by simply sitting with the child and repeatedly naming his feelings, “you’re so angry, you’re so sad”, rather than telling him to get over it, etc.

On Garner being a great observer of human emotions and whether she has questions in mind when she is observing. Nope! Garner just barges in! She’s no good at planning. People love it if you are interested in their work. She realises she is “completely un-bore-able”. (I can relate to this.) She quoted a French writer who said “ignorance and curiosity” form the basis of their writing.

On whether writing The season cured her feeling of burnout: Garner has signed a contract to deliver another book in December but “has nothing say”!

Conclusion

I loved this conversation, not only because Beejay asked perceptive, interesting questions and because Garner is – well, Garner – but also because Garner confirmed my own feelings about sport. It is life – it’s narrative, character, drama, emotion. It can play out so many of the big things we feel and experience.

Beejay clearly liked this too because she concluded the conversation on the idea that football is bigger than just the game. Was there one lesson we could take away from it. Garner’s response?

”Don’t turn your back on the play”!

And with that the session closed to enthusiastic and appreciative applause.

Author Talk: The season with Helen Garner
With Beejay Silcox
National Library of Australia, presented in partnership with the Canberra Writers Festival
Thursday 20 February 2025

On the comedy of Jane Austen (1905)

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A regular part of my Jane Austen group’s monthly meeting is a show-and-tell which means of course that we share anything new we’ve acquired, seen or heard about relating to Jane Austen. At our February meeting, a member brought along a first edition (I think) of a book a friend had given him as a result of that friend’s downsizing. It pays to have your friends know your enthusiasms!

The book was G.E. Mitton’s Jane Austen and her times, 1775-1817 (1st ed. 1905). We were intrigued as none of us had heard of this book or its author. Who is Mitton? The assumption from some in the group was male, but others of us were not so sure – and we were right to be, because G.E. Mitton is Geraldine Edith Mitton (1868-1955). She was, according to Wikipedia which cites Who’s who from 1907, “an English novelist, biographer, editor, and guide-book writer”.

Wikipedia provides a brief biography for her – drawn primarily from a couple of obituaries – followed by a list of works. It’s not much, but provides some background. She was born in Bishop Auckland, Country Durham, the third daughter of Rev. Henry Arthur Mitton, who was a master of Sherburn Hospital. In her late twenties, Mitton moved to London, where in 1899 she was employed by the publishing company A & C Black, and worked on the editorial staff of Who’s who. In 1920, she became the third wife of colonial administrator Sir George Scott and collaborated with him on several novels set in Burma. (Wikipedia lists four collaborative novels.) Her biography of him, Scott of the Shan Hills (1936), was published the year after his death. Several of her books are available at Project Gutenberg.

I could research her further, and, who knows, I might one day, but she’s not the main point of this post. What I want to share is how she starts her book. Chapter 1 is titled “Preliminary and Discursive”, and it opens with:

Of Jane Austen’s life there is little to tell, and that little has been told more than once by writers whose relationship to her made them competent to do so. It is impossible to make even microscopic additions to the sum-total of the facts already known of that simple biography, and if by chance a few more original letters were discovered they could hardly alter the case, for in truth of her it may be said, “Story there is none to tell, sir.” To the very pertinent question which naturally follows, reply may thus be given.

Deborah Hopkinson, Ordinary, extraordinary Jane Austen

Little did Mitton know! Despite the significant gaps in her biography, Austen is surely up there as a biographer’s subject. There have been many traditional biographies, including, in alphabetical order, those by David Cecil, yasmine Gooneratne, Park Honan, Elizabeth Jenkins, David Nokes, Carol Shield and Claire Tomalin. But, perhaps partly because of the gaps and partly because books about Austen are popular (and presumably sell well), her life has been written about from almost every imaginable angle, such as:

  • through the places she lived (Lucy Worsley’s Jane Austen at home) and the objects she owned (Paula Byrne’s The real Jane Austen: A life in small things);
  • through her beliefs and values (Helen Kelly’s Jane Austen: The secret radical and Paula Hollingworth’s The spirituality of Jane Austen);
  • through her relationships (E.J. Clery’s Jane Austen: The banker’s sister, Irene Collins’ Jane Austen: The parson’s daughter and Jon Spence’s “imagined biography” Becoming Jane Austen);
  • through (or by) her fans (Constance Hill’s Jane Austen: Her homes and her friends); and
  • for children (such as Deborah Hopkinson and Qin Leng’s picture book biography, Ordinary, extraordinary Jane Austen: The story of six novels, three notebooks, a writing box and one clever girl).

Need I continue?

But all that’s an aside. The opening paragraph then continues, and here is the main point of my post:

Jane Austen stands absolutely alone, unapproached, in a quality in which women are usually supposed to be deficient, a humorous and brilliant insight into the foibles of human nature, and a strong sense of the ludicrous. As a writer in The Times (November 25, 1904) neatly puts it, “Of its kind the comedy of Jane Austen is incomparable. It is utterly merciless. Prancing victims of their illusions, her men and women are utterly bare to our understanding, and their gyrations are irresistibly comic.”

Remember, this was written in 1905. Austen may not stand “absolutely alone” – and I would hope that women are no longer seen as “deficient” – in having “a humorous and brilliant insight into the foibles of human nature, and a strong sense of the ludicrous”, but I appreciate Mitton’s recognition of her wit. And that last sentence from The Times is close to perfect.

My Jane Austen group plans to discuss this subject later in the year, so you might see more on this topic, particularly regarding whether we see her comedy as “utterly merciless”. Meanwhile, you are more than welcome to share your thoughts.