Ruth Park and D’Arcy Niland, The drums go bang! (#BookReview)

January 18, 2020December 31, 2020 / Whispering Gums / 30 Comments

Volume 1 of Ruth Park’s autobiography, A fence around the cuckoo, covers the period of her life up to when she lands in Australia to marry D’Arcy Niland. Not being sure, perhaps, that there’d be a sequel, Park concludes with:

We lived together for twenty-five years less five weeks. We had many fiery disagreements but no quarrels, a great deal of shared and companionable literary work, and much love and constancy. Most of all I like to remember laughter.

That autobiography was published in 1992. The drums go bang, written collaboratively by Park and Niland, was published in 1956 and covers the first five or so of these years to just after the publication in 1947 of The harp in the south.

The first thing that struck me was its point of view: it slips astonishingly between third person and first person plural, sometimes in the middle of a paragraph. And then the penny dropped, its collaborative nature. When they are talking about one of them, Tiger (Ruth’s nickname) or Evans (D’Arcy’s), third person is used, but when they are talking about them together, first person plural is used. Here is an example about their delayed honeymoon:

We didn’t mind the delay. Tiger was crazy to see Sydney, and besides she wasn’t too keen on going away to the Blue Mountains with a strange man. While Evans was away at the Railway she went around the city on her own …

Once you work out what’s going on, it works very well. However, to understand this particular paragraph, and the “strange man” comment you’ll need to read their story for yourself, as I want to move on to other things. Suffice it to say that this comment, while containing an element of truth, given the way their relationship developed, is also an example of their light, self-deprecating humour. As Park said in her autobiography, “most of all I like to remember laughter”.

The drums go bang is a short and often funny book, but it manages to cover a lot, including their struggles to find accommodation in 1940s Sydney when accommodation was scarce, their decision to go freelance and the resultant struggle to survive, their work in the outback, two pregnancies, their lives in Surry Hills and other Sydney suburbs, and their relationships with a wonderful cast of characters. The aspects which interested me most were of course Surry Hills, because it inspired The harp in the south, the writing life, and the writing itself, which provides such an insight into their skills.

Although they tell it with such humour, Park and Niland are very clear about how difficult the freelance life is. For most of the five years covered by the book they live a hand-to-mouth existence, experiencing poverty at close hand. However, there’s also good advice here for would-be writers. For example, early in the book, Tiger expresses frustration at Evans’s belief that a good story will sell regardless, but even this is told with humour:

He was convinced that if the story were good it must sell. He bailed up an amiable Salvation Army major and tried to persuade him that “The Other Side of Love” was just what was needed for the War Cry. He submitted “The Menace of Money” to the Business Man’s Monthly, and a sentimental animal story to the house magazine at the Abattoirs.

They share their Minor Carta, their manifesto for writers who wish to make a living writing. Its eight articles include some hard learnt truths, such as that you have to “write anything and everything”, you cannot afford to be “snobbish” about your art, and you can’t let rejection slips get you down. They talk about the variability of payment systems for freelance work, unscrupulous writing schools, and the importance of marketing, of needing to “shape it to fit”. They write articles, songs, short stories, radio plays, children’s radio, comedy sketches, and more – anything that might bring in a cheque (and they do it sharing one old typewriter.)

I’d love to share more about their lives, and particularly the characters in it, like Evans’ brother Young Gus, the generous freelance publisher Mr Virtue, and colourful relations like Aunt Nibblestones and Uncle Looshus, but I want to get onto something that is most relevant to Bill’s AWW Gen 3 Week, their time in Surry Hills and how it inspired The harp in the south. Initially scared by “the place, with its brawling, shrieking life”, abusive drunks and fighting prostitutes, Park started to adapt, and

… began to study the people for what they were, and not what they did. Their true kindness, their generosity and charity filled her with shame. They were so much more genuinely loveable than she had given them credit for being, and she began to understand how the incredible congestion of their lives, the rabbit-warren houses, the inescapable dirt of an area which is built around the big factory chimneys all contributed to their innately lawless, conventionless attitude towards life. She began to understand that in such a place dirt ceases to become important, morals are often impracticable, and privacy is an impossibility.

As it turned out, though, The harp in the south was written, almost, you could say, accidentally. In New Zealand for some needed R&R after the birth of their second child, they are sent a clipping by Uncle Looshus which announces a Sydney Morning Herald competition for a novel, short story and poem. Park tries to convince Niland to write a novel but he refuses, saying he only writes short stories, and tells her to have a go. So, she does, and of course Surry Hills is her inspiration:

… she felt she understood them. She certainly liked them, mostly because in the midst of all their dirt and poverty and fecklessness they contrived to be happy.

She wrote down a sentence that seemed to sum up their philosophy: “I was thinking of how lucky we are”.

That sentence, the last line in the book, was the key that opened the door. From then on the story grew by itself.

This book, published serially in 1947 to both acclaim and vituperation, has become a classic of Australian social realism, albeit, as Paul Genoni says, “tempered with romanticism”. The same could be said of this delightful memoir.

Ruth Park and D’Arcy Niland
The drums go bang!
Illustrated by Phil Taylor
Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1956
195pp.
ISBN: None

John Clanchy, In whom we trust (#BookReview)

January 15, 2020 / Whispering Gums / 26 Comments

Book cover My first question when I read a book of historical fiction is why? And so it was for John Clanchy’s latest novel In whom we trust, which is set in Victoria around World War 1, albeit is not about the war. It is, in fact, about a Catholic home for orphaned children, St Barnabas, and three people associated with it, visiting chaplain Father Pearse, and two young people, inmate Thomas Stuart and scullery maid Molly Preston. Of course, when I say “about” St Barnabas, I don’t really mean that. St Barnabas frames the novel, provides its context, but the novel itself is about something far more complex, which gets me back to my opening question, why?

Now there are, to my mind, two main responses to historical fiction. One is to see it as something in the past, something that we might learn from but that overall we can leave firmly in the past. The other is to see its relevance to the present, to look at past actions or events, with the perspective of time, in order to reflect on now. This response also brings in those universals we like to talk about, those things about us that history (or time) doesn’t change. John Clanchy’s In whom we trust demands this second response: it asks us to look at the institutional abuse of children and its long history, and to see the human factors that enabled it then right on through to now. As Hilary Mantel has said, “all historical fiction is really contemporary fiction; you write out of your own time.”

In his Author’s Note and Acknowledgement, Clanchy thanks publisher Finlay Lloyd for “taking on a difficult book such as this”. What “difficult” does he mean? The difficult content or the difficulty of its execution? Probably both. The content is, of course, difficult. We have St Barnabas run by the tortured and torturing Brother Stanislaus. He is the epitome of the old-school hell-fire-and-damnation Brother. Ravaged by the Church’s constraints (particularly abstinence), he twists the scriptures, the theology, to justify his abuse of those in his care, who include, of course, Thomas and Molly.

However, this book is also “difficult” in its construction, which is not the same as saying that it’s difficult to read, because the story flows beautifully, despite frequent changes in voice or perspective. The story is told from three main – and easily differentiated – points of view: the third person subjective perspectives of Father Pearse and Thomas, and the first person voice of Molly via her diary.

The narrative is framed by a meeting between Thomas and Pearse, at the latter’s parish in Sale, some three years after the abuse had occurred. Gradually, through their conversations and private reflections, and through the insertion of Molly’s diary entries, the back story comes out and Thomas’s request of Pearse is revealed. At this point the diary entries finish and the narrative moves into a simpler chronology as Pearse works to fulfil his promise to Thomas, who has by now enlisted and wants this thing done before he leaves. What he wants done cannot right the wrongs of the past but will hopefully help prevent them continuing in the future. And that’s about all I’ll say about the plot.

“the strange, savage world”

That Clanchy can make such subject matter both engrossing and deeply moving is down to his writing and his understanding of humanity. The novel opens in Father Pearse’s head:

‘There was a boy came while you were out, Father Pearse,’ Mrs Reilly said. And stood.
The woman wanted strangling.

I loved this. So simple, but already we’ve learnt a lot, the main thing being, as the rest of the chapter confirms, that Father Pearse is not your warm-hearted priest. He’s an impatient, easily irritated one, so, when the boy, Thomas, appears, we are predisposed to like him more than we like Pearse. As the novel progresses, Thomas firmly but gently brings Pearse around to being – to use modern parlance – the best version of himself! In other words, Pearse, who is not a bad man, just a weak, cowardly one who “means no real harm”, is brought to see the right and humane thing to do.

This doesn’t come easily though. He is suspicious of and resistant to this trouble-making Thomas. He doesn’t trust him! And here is cornerstone of the novel, trust (as you might have guessed from the novel’s title.) There are many layers of trust in the novel. Clanchy shows how trust develops between people, such as between Molly and Thomas, between Thomas and his indigenous friend from St Barnabas Benton, and, eventually, between Pearse and Thomas. There is trust in authority and institutions, such as that St Barnabas will care for the children entrusted to it. There is trust in forms and rituals, like the confessional. And there is trust that people will do what they promise or undertake to do. All of these – their successes and failures, and the nuances surrounding them – are explored in this novel. The reality of the challenge becomes clear to Pearse late in the novel:

Trust. That was the crux of it. How was anyone meant to find a path through this forest of competing trusts?

Muddying this path are competing – or, shall we just call a spade a spade and say twisted – values and priorities. These include the age-old issue of abstinence and the inviolability of the confessional, and the need, as Pearse’s Bishop makes perfectly clear, to protect “our Mother Church”.

Through all this, Clanchy weaves a compelling, painfully true story about human beings – weak ones, arrogant ones, damaged ones, wise ones, loyal ones. Of all these people, it’s the young Thomas who has the clearest vision. He has, recognises Pearse, the

trick of putting his finger on truths so obvious that most other people, in search for something which redounded more to their own credit, looked right past.

And now, before I conclude, something about the writing, because it is this, alongside Clanchy’s understanding of human motivations and relationships, that make this “difficult” book also a pleasure to read. Clanchy’s ability to nail his points with a few words can take your breath away:

… then Thomas Stuart was equally checked by the massive theological boulder which the priest now rolled into his path.

AND

The crimson cloth of the Bishop’s patience was rapidly becoming threadbare.

The vernacular he creates for Molly’s diary – including words like “tumple” and “fumply” – gives her colour and character. There’s also some clever word play and light ironic touches, not to mention the little biblical in-joke about doubting Thomas, because in this book it’s the priest who doubts Thomas more than vice versa. Indeed, it’s the careful, sure way Clanchy develops the see-sawing doubting-trusting relationship between Pearse and Thomas that provides the novel’s backbone and interest.

There are of course no simple answers to the dilemma facing Father Pearse, and the ending we get is the only one it could be. It’s to Clanchy’s credit that he doesn’t opt for the easy feel-good fix. There are wins along the way but Clanchy knows, and we know, that it would be morally suspect and historically inaccurate to provide the ending we’d like. In whom we trust is a powerful and wonderful read.

John Clanchy
In whom we trust
Braidwood: Finlay Lloyd, 2019
251pp
ISBN: 9780994516558

(Review copy courtesy Finlay Lloyd)

Monday musings on Australian literature: Christina Stead’s 1930s, Salzburg and Sydney

January 13, 2020January 13, 2020 / Whispering Gums / 16 Comments

My first Monday musings on Christina Stead (my posts on Stead) was barely introductory, so I’m planning two more to coincide with Bill’s (The Australian Legend) AWW Gen 3 Week. These two posts – this week’s and next – focus contemporary Australian responses to the four books she published in the 1930s. I’m keeping this focus tight because Stead is such a complex figure in Australian literary history, and so much has been written about her already, including Hazel Rowley’s well-regarded biography. (See Lisa’s review at ANZLitLovers). However, I enjoyed reading, in Trove of course, what some contemporary Aussies had to say about her, and wanted to share them.

To start though, a very brief bio relevant to this period. Stead, born in Sydney in 1902, went overseas, to England initially, in 1928. She then lived, and worked in a bank, in Paris from 1930 to 1935, before spending time in the USA, Spain and England with her husband-to-be William Blake (Wilhelm Blech). In 1937, they moved to the USA. She didn’t return to Australia to live until 1968. Her first four books were published in the 1930s: The Salzburg tales (1934), Seven poor men of Sydney (1934), The beauties and the furies (1936), and House of all nations (1938).

Although over the years Stead experienced a mixed reaction from Australia, some critics denouncing her as “expatriate”, it’s clear that in the 1930s, at least, she was well-admired by Australian newspaper reviewers. It’s also clear that she was seen as both a modernist and a realist, with no nods to our bush and pioneer traditions.

The Salzburg tales was her first published book and it immediately received positive attention from Australian newspaper reviewers. I was tickled by the writer in Melbourne’s Argus who wrote that “Many times it has been said that there is no particular demand for writers’ collections of short stories but there are authors and publishers who continue to issue books of the kind and apparently the stories find readers.” Plus ça change, it seems.

Reviews of this book noted its inventiveness and original style. For example, S.E.N., wrote in the Daily Mail on 4 April 1934, that

her book is remarkable not only for its inventiveness, but for its original style. It commingles modernism and mysticism, realism and romanticism, the dramatic and the uneventful, love, law, life, laughter, and letters in an olla podrida which is both attractive and unusual. Some of the stories are, like that of the Wanton, a little too highly spiced here and there for the less sophisticated reader; but on the whole Miss Stead has given us a collection of tales which are admirably told and admirably contrasted.

There we have it – “modernism” and “realism” – two styles/approaches that were significant the 1930s literature, and of which Stead was a major exponent. The unnamed reviewer in the Sydney Morning Herald (3 May 1934) remarked that “Miss Stead … really seems to belong in a class by herself”. This reviewer praises the variety, and concludes that “there seems no end to Miss Stead’s inventiveness and no limit to her powers of expression”. Jean Williamson, writing in the Australian Women’s Weekly (7 July 1934), is no less admiring, calling it “extraordinary in its concept, its vocabulary, its technique and its imagery.”

The reviewer in the Townsville Daily Bulletin (7 August 1934) states:

This author is, I understand, an Australian, who now lives in Paris. How long she has been there I do not know but she has accumulated experience, impressions, fed her imagination in a way that would not be possible for an author writing from this side of the world. It is not only that Miss Stead has set her scenes in such a town as Salzburg, and peopled her many pages with remarkable people. Most authors could have done that, but her story is saturated with her personality, lit up humor, knowledge, penetration, and is decidedly original.

This is an interesting comment in the context of Drusilla Modjeska’s book Exiles at home (posted on by Bill). Modjeska’s book is about “the ones who stayed” in Australia … tackling … how to live and work in this country as women and as writers and how to build a culture that has its roots in Australian histories and conditions, rather than in a foreign past” (from Introduction to Reprinted Editions.) Of course, the thing about Stead is that she too forged a contemporary literature, some of it set in or drawn from her Australian experience … which brings me to …

Stead’s second book, Seven poor men of Sydney, which garnered similarly positive reviews. However, the reviewer in The Newcastle Sun (22 November 1934) makes no bones about its grittiness. It has no “Australian local color of the wattle blossom and stockwhip kind”. S/he describes it as high art, and says “it gives evidence of intuition, of skill in handling of character and of words and of high achievement in the depicting of realities.” For this writer, though, there is such a thing as being too modern, too real:

And while no one can reasonably suggest that a writer should ignore the gutter, it is not necessary to bring in the language of the gutter. It is, indeed, a great pity that a writer who shows abundantly that she is capable of far better things, should think it necessary to be “modern” in this particular way.

I know some readers who still feel this today … Anyhow, interestingly, Bookman writing in the Courier Mail (30 November 1934) has an opposing criticism, saying that “perhaps” the novel’s “weakest point” is that “the characters all talk too learnedly”! However, he too recognises the novel’s “stark realism”. He calls it “a remarkable book; the kind of book to which the word ‘powerful’ is sometimes applied”, but he also clearly fears its politics:

She has revealed the mentality out of which revolutions are made. That lesson is especially important in these days when thousands of lads, with more education than judgment, are being thrown into desperation and into the arms of extreme propagandists because all they can see ahead is blind-alley employment or no employment at all. In such conditions communism flourishes, and Miss Stead doubtless saw it thriving in Central Europe.

The aforementioned Jean Williamson, writing again in the Australian Women’s Weekly (9 March 1935) reports Stead’s own comments on the book.

“The Seven Poor Men of Sydney is not so much a novel, I suppose, as a cast of characters battling through daily life, as much passion being expended or the small accidents of daily life as on any one of the great tragic themes; in fact the great tragic themes are all melted down and infused there. That was my feeling in writing the Seven Poor Men.”

Stead, a deeply committed socialist, also says that the novel shows she hasn’t forgotten Australia, nor “the importance of the Labor Movement in everyone’s daily life”.

So, two very different books, both written in a modernist style, both hailed for their inventiveness and her “phrasemaking” – and, put together, neatly reflecting her seemingly dichotomous existence.

Note: You can find bloggers’ reviews of various Stead works at Lisa’s ANZLitLovers Christina Stead page.

Joan Didion, Quiet days in Malibu (#Review)

January 12, 2020January 12, 2020 / Whispering Gums / 37 Comments

Malibu from Malibu Pier, August 1993

As for many people I expect, Joan Didion’s now classic The year of magical thinking made a lasting impression on me, so I was keen to read her essay “Quiet days in Malibu” when it popped up as a Library of America (LOA) Story of the Week back in November. I was also interested in the subject matter. Having lived in Southern California in the 1990s, I wanted to see what Didion had to say about Malibu, a place that has always conveyed the romance of Californian beaches to me, largely through Gidget! There, I’ve admitted my teen-girl secret.

What Didion had to say was not what I expected. She starts with:

In a way it seems the most idiosyncratic of beach communities, twenty-seven miles of coastline with no hotel, no passable restaurant, nothing to attract the traveler’s dollar. It is not a resort. No one “vacations” or “holidays,” as those words are conventionally understood, at Malibu. Its principal residential street, the Pacific Coast Highway, is quite literally a highway, California 1, which runs from the Mexican border to the Oregon line and brings Greyhound buses and refrigerated produce trucks and sixteen-wheel gasoline tankers hurtling past the front windows of houses frequently bought and sold for over a million dollars. The water off Malibu is neither as clear nor as tropically colored as the water off La Jolla. The beaches at Malibu are neither as white nor as wide as the beach at Carmel. The hills are scrubby and barren, infested with bikers and rattlesnakes, scarred with cuts and old burns and new R.V. parks. For these and other reasons Malibu tends to astonish and disappoint those who have never before seen it, and yet its very name remains, in the imagination of people all over the world, a kind of shorthand for the easy life [my emph]. I had not before 1971 and will probably not again live in a place with a Chevrolet named after it.

Things have, naturally, changed since Didion lived there for seven years through the 1970s, but only a little I think. Pacific Highway 1 still runs through it, alongside the beach, though the more inland 101 Freeway is the main north-south route. It is still home to many celebrities and other well-to-do living in expensive mansions. This opening paragraph, however, also introduces us Didion’s style – including her use of repetition (“The water off … The beaches at … The hills are …”) and quietly pointed commentary (as in “I had not before 1971 and will probably not again live in a place with a Chevrolet named after it.”)

This essay, published in a 1979 collection titled The white album, was in fact a reworking of two pieces published in Esquire in 1976. LOA’s notes say that those pieces “showcase the beach community” not through its celebrities but through “the lifeguards on the beach and the manager of a local orchid farm.” To these pieces, which form the bulk of the essay, Didion added the above-quoted introductory paragraph and a concluding section, about which more later.

The white album, LOA’s notes also tell us, opens with her famous line, “we tell ourselves stories in order to live”. The stories she tells in this essay are about “ordinary” people, as much as anyone, really, is ordinary. First up is lifeguard Dick Haddock. She introduces him thus – with that same use of repetition:

Dick Haddock, a family man, a man twenty-six years in the same line of work, a man who has on the telephone and in his office the crisp and easy manner of technological middle management, is in many respects the prototypical Southern California solid citizen.

She describes visiting his “office”, the lookout on Malibu’s Zuma Beach, on Thanksgiving morning in 1975, when

A Santa Ana wind was just dying after blowing in off the Mojave for three weeks and setting 69,000 acres of Los Angeles County on fire. Squadrons of planes had been dropping chemicals on the fires to no effect. Querulous interviews with burned-out householders had become a fixed element of the six o’clock news. Smoke from the fires had that week stretched a hundred miles out over the Pacific and darkened the days and lit the nights and by Thanksgiving morning there was the sense all over Southern California of living in some grave solar dislocation. It was one of those weeks when Los Angeles seemed most perilously and breathtakingly itself, a cartoon of natural disaster …

Oh no! As I post this story, we are suffering similarly from bushfires. We certainly feel that we are living in “some grave … dislocation”. Note too another of those pointed comments – on LA seeming “most perilously and breathtakingly itself, a cartoon of natural disaster”. Anyhow, Didion’s description of Haddock, his colleagues and their work, is respectful and evocative, recognising both the drama and the tedium of what they do.

The second piece is about another prototypical Southern Californian, “a Mexican from Mexico”, or “resident alien” (just as I, a wife, was a “derivative alien” to my husband’s “primary alien”!) Amado Vazquez is anything but ordinary, though, as he’s an expert orchid breeder for Arthur Freed Orchids. Didion shares with us her love of greenhouses:

all my life I had been trying to spend time in one greenhouse or another, and all my life the person in charge of one greenhouse or an- other had been trying to hustle me out.

And here, finally, was her opportunity to spend time in one! Again, in her chatty style, she explains the work of an orchid breeder – of stud plants, of orchid fertility, of the naming of plants, of the business of orchid breeding. She references that racist name-changing behaviour that white people often do, whereby the orchid named for Vazquez’s wife “mysteriously” becomes “Vasquez”.

But, I want to close on the short concluding section in which, after significantly mentioning the drowning death, “a casualty of Quaaludes”, of one of her 12-year-old daughter’s friends, she describes another horrendous fire:

Within two hours a Santa Ana wind had pushed this fire across 25,000 acres and thirteen miles to the coast, where it jumped the Pacific Coast Highway as a half-mile fire storm generating winds of 100 miles per hour and temperatures up to 2500 degrees Fahrenheit. Refugees huddled on Zuma Beach. Horses caught fire and were shot on the beach, birds exploded in the air. Houses did not explode but imploded, as in a nuclear strike. By the time this fire storm had passed 197 houses had vanished into ash …

This fire also destroyed three years of the orchid breeder’s work … Malibu, you see, with its peculiar geography, has is rife for natural disasters.

It was at this point that I realised the irony of the title. Through restrained, respectful reportage about the ordinary people of Malibu, Didion conveys that, in fact, Malibu is rarely quiet, and that few of its inhabitants enjoy an “easy life”.

Joan Didion
“Quiet days in Malibu”
First published: The white album, 1979 (sections published in Esquire in April and June 1976)
Available: Online at the Library of America

Chloe Hooper, The arsonist: A mind on fire (#BookReview)

January 10, 2020January 19, 2020 / Whispering Gums / 35 Comments

It may not have been the most sensible decision to read Chloe Hooper’s book, The arsonist, during Australia’s worst-ever bushfire week, but in fact I picked it up a few days before the crisis became evident, and once I started I couldn’t put it down. The arsonist tells the story of the man arrested and tried for one of the major fires in the Black Saturday series of bushfires that ravaged much of Victoria in February 2009. I have often wondered how you identify how and where a fire started. Hooper answers much of this.

However, what made this book unputdownable was that Hooper adopted, as she did in The tall man, the narrative (or creative) nonfiction style to tell her story, and proved herself, again, to be a skilled exponent of this genre. For those not sure about this genre, Lee Gutkind’s definition, quoted in Wikipedia, is a good start: “Ultimately, the primary goal of the creative nonfiction writer is to communicate information, just like a reporter, but to shape it in a way that reads like fiction.” In other words, the information must be true or factual, but presented like a story.

Bush, eastern Victoria, 9 mths after Black Saturday, 2009

Hooper structures her story like a classic three-act drama: I The detectives, II The lawyers, III The courtroom, followed by the Coda. She provides the facts – the whos, whens, wheres and whys – as much as they are known, but forms them into a narrative. So, after an opening paragraph which evocatively describes a fire-destroyed bush landscape, the second paragraph reads:

At the intersection of two nondescript roads, Detective Sergeant Adam Henry sits in his car taking in a puzzle. On one side of Glendonald Road, the timber plantation is untouched: pristine Pinus radiata, all sown at the same time, growing in immaculate green lines. On the other side, near where the road forms a T with a track named Jellef’s Outlet, stand rows of Eucalyptus globulus, the common blue gum cultivated the world over to make printer paper. All torched, as far as the eye can see. On Saturday 7 February 2009, around 1.30pm, a fire started somewhere near here and now, late on Sunday afternoon, it is still burning several kilometres away.

You can see, in this, that we are being invited in to see what her “character” Detective Henry is seeing, but we are also given very specific facts. The next paragraph, provides some personal background to this first “character” in her story:

Detective Henry has a new baby, his first, a week out of hospital. The night before, he had been called back from paternity leave for a 6 am meeting …

As Part I progresses, we meet other police officers and forensic experts; we travel with them as they investigate the fire itself and then follow leads to the most likely suspect; and we are with them as they interview this suspect and arrest him for the crime. We also meet many victims who lost family members and/or property. Their stories are heartrending – excruciating, in fact, as I wrote in the margins – and were particularly hard to read, with similar losses occurring in Australia right now.

Using a similar narrative technique in Part II – providing facts, and describing the “characters” and their feelings – Hooper then introduces us to the Legal Aid lawyers, or one lawyer in particular, brought in to defend the accused. As she does this, our allegiance and sympathies shift a bit from the hardworking police to the hardworking lawyer – and, perhaps even, to her client who, only now, at this point in his life, is finally diagnosed as autistic, which provides a previously missing context for his strange responses and behaviours. And then, finally, in the third “act” or part, these two – the police and the legal team – come head to head in court, with our allegiances swaying between the two as they tussle it out, until the jury delivers its verdict.

The Coda, “set” some years later, contains Hooper’s reflections on the aftermath and some commentary on the process. For example, it’s clear that she had researched the case, had visited the fire region many times, including soon after the arrest, and had interviewed many of the participants, but, like Helen Garner in her three major narrative nonfiction works, had not managed to speak to the person at the centre, in this case, Brendan Sokaluk, the arsonist. Her request is refused, for understandable reasons. She was, she writes, both “disappointed” and “relieved”. Would speaking to him, she wonders, answer the book’s central question of “why”, and, even if he were able to explain why,

would understanding why Brendan lit a fire make the next deliberate inferno any more explicable? Or preventable? I now know there isn’t a standardised Arsonist. There isn’t a distinct part of the brain marked by a flame. There is only a person who feels spiteful, or lonely, or anxious, or enraged, or bored, or humiliated: all the things that can set a mind – any mind – on fire.

And there, I suppose, is the multiple tragedy of this story: the tragedy of a man ridiculed and bullied all his life for being different; the tragedy of a community that isn’t very good at managing people who are different; the tragedy of the conflagration (in this case a fire, but it could be anything) that can result when the two collide; and the overriding tragedy that there are no simple answers to arson.

Now, I fear you might think that I have given the “story” away and that you therefore need not read it. But, you don’t read The arsonist for the “story”. After all, this is nonfiction and the basic “story” is known. You read it for the insights that a fine mind (not a mind on fire!) like Hooper’s can bring to the situation. What she brings is both clarity about the facts and a nuanced understanding of what they mean. The arsonist is, as everyone’s been saying, an excellent read.

Lisa’s (ANZLitLovers) review of this book includes information from a festival conversation session featuring Hooper.

Chloe Hooper
The arsonist: A mind of fire
Hamish Hamilton, 2018
254pp.
ISBN: 9780670078189

Sharlene Teo, Ponti (Guest post by Rosalind Moran) (#BookReview)

January 8, 2020January 8, 2020 / Whispering Gums / 6 Comments

Last year as in the two previous years of the ACT Litbloggers/New Territory program, I offered the participants the opportunity to write a guest post for my blog. As a result Emma Gibson wrote a post on Randolph Stow’s Tourmaline, while Amy Walters suggested we do a 2018 Year in Review posts on each other’s blogs. This year, Rosalind Moran (check out her website) offered a book review on Singaporean author, Sharlene Teo, which of course I accepted as I’m happy to increase the diversity of authors covered on my blog.

Here is Rosalind’s post …

I haven’t read many books by Singaporean authors. Nevertheless, I am always keen to read more writing from beyond the traditional confines of the Anglosphere. So when I stumbled across Ponti in a bookstore after payday, I thought: why not?

Ponti was already vaguely on my radar. The debut novel had its London-based Singaporean author win the 2016 Deborah Rogers Writers’ Award before even being published (the award serves to support authors as they finish their first book). Since being released, it has been shortlisted for multiple prizes. Even Ian McEwan called the book “remarkable”. Naturally, my interest was piqued.

Ponti explores the lives of three interconnected women. There’s the cold and beautiful Amisa, who evokes the archetype of an enchantress; her pinched and unhappy daughter, Szu, who struggles to connect with others, least of all her mother; and Szu’s schoolmate, the privileged and acerbic Circe. As Amisa wallows in bitterness and begins to waste away, Szu and Circe develop a claustrophobic friendship – one that leaves Circe reckoning with her memories of it long after it has ended.

The novels switches between the perspectives of the three characters as well as between different points in time in their shared and separate histories. One quickly realises this book is focused not so much on detailing elaborate plotlines, but rather on deepening its characters. That said, it remains an engaging read throughout, simply owing to the compelling nature of the three women telling the story. What’s really behind each of their unique states of unhappiness, and how do their futures unfurl?

As the story unfolds, Amisa’s history emerges as the strongest plotline, perhaps because her experiences sow the environment in which Szu and Circe’s own troubles flourish. Indeed, she is the novel’s pivotal character, with her flaws, frustrations and traumas colouring all those with whom she comes into contact – and she is intriguing from the start. An unearthly beauty, she is introduced to the reader as a reclusive former actress, one of waning fame, whose defining moment was that of playing the lead in a trilogy of cult horror movies: Ponti 1, 2 and 3. Her role as the Pontianak, a predatory monster disguised as a beautiful woman, also comes to mirror her ongoing experience of moving through the world. Amisa is simultaneously desired and despised, even by her own family, and is ultimately a restless figure. She also effectively comes to haunt Szu and Circe.

I enjoyed many aspects of Ponti. Teo’s writing is strong and evocative, with characters frequently seeing their surrounds through a tinge of disgust and criticism; while these emotions do not in themselves make the writing strong, they do render it visceral and memorable. It was a pleasure to read a book where the characters’ homes, from the Malaysian village where Amisa grows up to the cosmopolitan Singapore, were drawn so distinctly. Through these strong descriptions, the book also manages to voice a subtle critique of how quickly and irreversibly the south-east Asian metropolis has changed over a few short decades, bringing both pressures and opportunities. In this sense, Pontiis a treat.

Characterisation is also a highlight of the novel – indeed, one could argue the novel is essentially one large exercise in characterisation. Teo’s focus on her characters’ interiorities makes them lifelike and compelling. Their interpersonal relationships, which often blur the boundaries between love, hate, and co-dependency, are also striking, with Szu and Circe’s friendship in particular standing out. Teo is masterful in her depiction of teen angst and complex female friendships, to the degree that her writing brings to mind a grungier Elena Ferrante. I also greatly enjoyed the book’s exploration of Indonesian and Malay mythology through the figure of the Pontianak, and the way this is used as a springboard into an exploration of broader ideas around perceptions of women and how they relate to men.

In the end, the novel’s only real shortcoming was – regrettably – the plot. For most of the book, this didn’t matter: the writing and characters are deeply engaging and I enjoyed simply following the story as it unfolded. Towards the end, however, it became clear the book was not going to resolve several of the questions that had helped build tension and momentum throughout its pages, or at least not do so adequately. In this sense, Ponti feels somewhat like a missed opportunity – because while ambiguity and character-driven plot can be done well, in this case, the story ended up feeling rushed in its final pages and retrospectively underdeveloped as a whole. It’s a shame, considering the book’s characters, setting, and writing are all so strong.

Nevertheless, Ponti remains an intriguing and thought-provoking read, and one that will rightly earn Sharlene Teo many avid fans; while her debut novel may not be perfect, it’s still well worth reading and suggests a great deal of promise. I’ll certainly be keeping an eye out for whatever she writes next.

Sharlene Teo
Ponti
London: Simon & Schuster, 2019
304pp.
ISBN-13: 978-1501173127

Thanks to Rosalind for an engaging and interesting review. Novel endings are a challenge, we know. Just ask EM Forster who wrote about it in Aspects of the novel. How many authors have changed the endings – even Jane Austen did for Persuasion – and how many readers question endings? Rosalind and I would love your thoughts on her review and/or on endings in general.

Monday musings on Australian literature: Some New Releases in 2020

January 6, 2020January 6, 2020 / Whispering Gums / 26 Comments

It seems from my stats that people like my “new releases” post, so here is the 2020 version. As in previous years, my list is mostly drawn from the Sydney Morning Herald, and as it is a Monday musings on Australian literature post, it will be limited to Australian authors (listed alphabetically.) Do click on the link to their see coming releases from non-Aussies, or from those Aussies I’ve omitted because I’ve only listed those most relevant to me, or for some basic information about the books.

Last year, I listed 27 fiction works, and read only four of them – but I will be reading a few more of them in the next 2-3 months.

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

Fiction

Patrick Allington’s Rise and shine (Scribe, June)
Richard Anderson’s Small Mercies (Scribe)
Robbie Arnott’s The rain heron (Text, June)
Margaret Bearman’s We were never friends (Brio, March)
James Bradley’s Ghost species (Hamish Hamilton, April)
Steven Conte’s The Tolstoy estate (Fourth Estate, August)
Trent Dalton‘s Shimmering skies (Vintage, June)
Meaghan Delahunt’s The night-side of the country (UWAP, March)
Jon Doust’s Return Ticket (Fremantle Press, March)
Ceridwen Dovey’s Life after truth (Hamish Hamilton)
Chris Flynn’s Mammoth (UQP, May, UQP).
Dennis Glover’s Factory 19 (Black Inc., July)
Kate Grenville‘s A room made of leaves (Text, July) (Coincidentally, Michelle Scott Tucker recently blogged about this Elizabeth Macarthur inspired novel. Do check it out!)
Sophie Hardcastle’s Below deck (Allen & Unwin, March)
Tom Keneally’s The Dickens boy (Vintage, April)
Kirsten Krauth‘s Almost a mirror (Transit, March)
Sofie Laguna‘s Big sky (working title) (Allen & Unwin, second half)
Bem Le Hunte’s Elephants with headlights (Transit, March)
S.L. Lim’s Revenge (Lounge, June)
Jamie Marina Lau‘s Gunk Baby (Brow Books, May)
Donna Mazza’s Fauna (Allen & Unwin, February)
Kate Mildenhall’s The mother fault (Simon and Schuster, September)
Liam Pieper’s Sweetness and light (Hamish Hamilton, March)
Mirandi Riwoe‘s Stone sky gold mountain (UQP, April)
Craig Silvey‘s Honeybee (working title) (Allen & Unwin, second half)

I have been wondering what Grenville was working on, so am pleased to see another novel coming our from her. And, I’m very pleased to see Krauth and Riwoe producing new novels after their powerful debuts.

SMH also lists “new voices” (including new forms for old voices!):

Paul Dalgarno’s Poly (Ventura, August)
Anna Goldsworthy’s Melting moments (Black Inc, March) (old voice)
Erin Hortle’s The octopus and I (Allen & Unwin, April)
Tobias McCorkell’s Everything in its right place (Transit Lounge, July)
Laura Jean McKay’s The animals in that country (Scribe, April)
Andrew Pippos’ Lucky’s (Picador, second half)
Alice Pung‘s One hundred days (Black Inc., October) (old voice)
Ronnie Scott’s The adversary (Hamish Hamilton, April)
Pip Williams’ The dictionary of lost words (Affirm, April).

Short stories

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

Emma Ashmere‘s Dreams they forgot (Wakefield Press, April)
Laura Elvery’s Ordinary matter (UQP, second half)
Mark O’Flynn’s Dental tourism (Puncher & Wattmann, February, );
Elizabeth Tan’s Smart ovens for lonely people (Brio, June, Brio)

And some “new” short story voices:

Melissa Manning’s Smokehouse (UQP, second half the year)
Wayne Marshall’s Shirl (February, Affirm)
Sean O’Beirne’s A couple of things before the end (Black Inc., February)
Stephen Pham’s Vietnamatta (Brow Books, October)
Barry Lee Thompson’s Broken rules and other stories (Transit Lounge, August)

Non-fiction

SMH provides a long list of new non-fiction books covering a huge range of topics, so my list is selective – but still, there’s a lot:

Randa Abdel-Fattah’s Growing up in the Age of Terror (NewSouth, July)
Elizabeth Becker’s Journaliste (Black Inc., September): on female journalists during the Vietnam War
Elise Bohan’s Future superhuman (NewSouth, October): on embracing the “transhuman”
Rutger Bregman’s Human kind (Oneworld, second half): on how altruism offers a new way to think
Bernard Collaery’s Oil under troubled water, March, MUP): the story of his being charged after exposing an Australian bugging operation in East Timor
Peter Cronau’s War on Terror (The Base, June): Australia’s role in the War on Terror
Robert Dessaix’s Time of our lives (Brio, second half): on ageing
Lindy Edwards’ Corporate power in Australia (Monash, February): on big business
Carly Findlay’s (ed) Growing up disabled in Australia (Black Inc, June): see my post on the Growing up series.
Fiona Foley’s Biting the clouds (UQP, September): 19th century Aboriginal “protection” and Indigenous opium addiction.
Rebecca Giggs’ Fathoms: the world in the whale: “the stories we tell about whales, what those stories signal about how we imagine our own species, and what whales reveal about the health of the planet” (from Scribe)
Julia Gillard and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala’s Women and leadership (Vintage, July): gender bias
Subhash Jaireth’s Spinoza’s overcoat: Travels with writers and poets (February, Transit): on writers and writing
Ketan Joshi’s Road to resolution (NewSouth, August): climate change
Royce Kurmelovs’ Just Money (UQP, second half): on our debt
Garry Linnell’s Badlands (Michael Joseph, September): the fall of the Australian bushranger
Sophie McNeill’s We can’t say we didn’t know (HarperCollins, March): stories from war-ravaged areas by a former ABC Middle-East Correspondent
Paddy Manning’s Body count (S&S, May): climate change
Rory Medcalf’s Contest for the Indo-Pacifc (March, La Trobe): on “regional tensions”
Patrick Mullins’ The trials of Portnoy: how Penguin broke through Australia’s censorship system: “the first account of the audacious publishing decision that — with the help of booksellers and readers around the country — forced the end of literary censorship in Australia” (quoted from Scribe)
Jonica Newby’s Climate grief (NewSouth, September): climate change
Aaron Smith’s The rock (Transit, November): Australia as perceived from its northerly outpost, Thursday Island
Victor Steffensen’s Fire country (Hardie Grant, March): looks at how Indigenous fire practices might help our country (from an Indigenous fire practitioner)
Gabbie Stroud’s Dear Parents (Allen & Unwin, February, A&U): by the author of the well-regarded Teacher
Malcolm Turnbull’s A Bigger Picture (Hardie Grant, April): from our latest ex-Prime Minister
Marian Wilkinson’s Carbon Club (Allen & Unwin, June): climate change

I note that a book that was flagged for coming out last year – and which I noticed didn’t appear – is now flagged for this year: journalist Julia Baird’s Phosphorescence (Fourth Estate, April).

It’s interesting, encouraging and not surprising to see quite a few books on climate change in the above list.

Biography and memoir (loosely defined)

Darleen Bungey’s Daddy Cool (Allen & Unwin, May): “memoir” of crooner Laurie Brooks, father of biographer Bungey and writer Geraldine Brooks. Can you write a memoir of someone not yourself? Or, is this a hybrid memoir-biography?
Gabrielle Carey‘s Only happiness here (UQP, second half): on Australian-born novelist Elizabeth von Arnim (whose work I love and for whom I have another biography already on my TBR)
Melissa Davey’s A fair trial (Scribe, second half of the year): on George Pell
David Duffy (Radio Girl, May, A&U): on the first Australian woman electrical engineer, Florence Violet McKenzie
Clementine Ford’s How we love (Allen & Unwin, second half): on her experience of love
Evelyn Juers’ The dancer (Giramondo, September): on Philippa Cullen
Mary Li’s Ballet, Li, Sophie and me (Viking, September): memoir by Australian ballerina, and wife of Li Cunxin
Alex Miller: a memoir untitled? (Allen & Unwin, second half): on his friend and mentor, Max Blatt
Cassandra Pybus’ Truganini (Allen & Unwin, March): on the titular Indigenous Tasmanian woman
Miranda Tapsell’s Top End girl (Hachette, May): memoir
Robert Wainwright: untitled (July, Allen & Unwin): on the great granddaughter of the Lindeman wines founder, Enid Lindeman
Donna Ward’s She I dare not name (Allen & Unwin, March): on being a spinster

Does anything here interest you?

Six degrees of separation, FROM Daisy Jones and the Six TO …

January 4, 2020January 3, 2020 / Whispering Gums / 38 Comments

I do love the sound of 2020. It has a lovely ring to it. It’s also the year that Father Gums will turn 100. However, that will be May. Right now, it’s time to kick off the first Six Degrees of Separation meme of the year. This meme for those of you who don’t know it is explained in detail on our meme host Kate’s blog – booksaremyfavouriteandbest.

Book cover I’m starting this year the same as I did last year, that is, with Kate choosing a book I haven’t read. Indeed I haven’t even heard of Taylor Jenkin’s Reid book, Daisy Jones and the Six, which is a novel about the rise and fall of a fictional 1970s rock band.

For my first link, I’m sticking with the theme of rock music, and choosing Nigel Featherstone’s novella, The beach volcano (my review). However, Featherstone’s novel, while featuring a successful rock musician – Canning aka Mick Dark – is not so much about Canning’s musical career as his return home after a long absence for his father’s 80th birthday, intent on getting answers to some longstanding family secrets and, thus, resolve underlying conflicts.

Pierre Lemaitre, The great swindle Featherstone’s Canning returns home because he wants to improve his relationship with his family, and father. Not so for Édouard Péricourt in Pierre Lemaître’s The great swindle (my review). Severely wounded in World War 1, and the son of a dominating father, he flat refuses to return home to resolve those unresolved conflicts!

Julian Davies, Crow mellow Book cover And here, sticking, unusually for me, with content, I’m going to link on something a bit tenuous. Édouard Péricourt was so disfigured in the war that he wears increasingly bizarre but often beautiful masks rather than let people see his face. Masks feature in Julian Davies’ novel Crow mellow (my review), but via a masked ball that takes place in a country house/bush retreat where artists are staying with their patrons and admirers.

Crow mellow belongs, then, to a sub-genre known as country house novels. While you couldn’t call my next link a country house, exactly, but the characters in Charlotte Wood’s The natural way of things (my review) are all stuck together in a sort of labour camp in the country somewhere. No masked-ball fun there!

The natural way of things won the Stella Prize in 2016. The 2015 winner was a sort of country house novel too, Emily Bitto’s The strays (my review) which is about an artist’s colony in Victoria, inspired by the Reeds and their Heide group. Yes, I know I’m stretching the country house friendship a bit, but why not?

Book cover So, where to from here? How about another book which was inspired by artists, albeit of a different type? Dominic Smith’s The electric hotel (my review) was inspired by the silent film pioneers of the early twentieth century. Its protagonist, Claude Ballard, is fictional, like Bitto’s Trenthams, but it does directly reference real artists as well, such as the Lumière Brothers and Thomas Edison.

So, a different sort of chain for me because all the main links are content-related (with an additional link between Wood and Bitto on the Stella Prize.) Interestingly, I’ve realised that most of the books deal with artists of some sort – painters, musicians, filmmakers, and mask-makers. Four of my six authors are male, which is not common for me, and all of my linked authors, except Pierre Lemaître, are Australian (albeit Smith now lives in the USA). Oh, and all are set post 1900.

And now, my usual questions: Have you read Daisy Jones and the Six? And, regardless, what would you link to?

Blogging highlights for 2019

January 2, 2020December 31, 2023 / Whispering Gums / 10 Comments

Here is the last of my traditional year-end trifecta (the others being my Australian Women Writers’ Challenge wrap-up and Reading highlights posts). This is very self-indulgent, I know, but it interests me!

Random blogging stats

The searches

Here’s a selection of 2019’s searches that found my blog:

many searches, not surprisingly, related to this year’s top post: the searches included (in order of frequency) boy swallows universe discussion questions, your end is a dead blue wren, boy swallows universe quotes, and boy swallows universe meaning. There were also various permutations of wording searching the meaning of red phone in the book! It’s interesting to see what people might be looking for besides straight reviews.
last year I noted that the word “summary” was popular in searches, more so than the previous year’s popular word “analysis“. This year, however, they were more neck and neck.
there are people out there clearly looking to prove Dark emu wrong, as some of the more popular searches had wording like dark emu debunked, critics of dark emu and, would you believe, critical reviews of black emu book. This last one suggests that people didn’t know exactly what they are searching for but had been told the work is no good. I don’t think my post would have satisfied them. Anyhow, I’m guessing it’s all these people who helped push this post into the Top Ten this year.
although my post on What to say when you order food at a restaurant is still among my Top Posts, there were fewer actual searches recorded for this one. A couple, however, are entertaining. One is: what to do if food is not the way you ordered. I’m not sure my post would have helped that person either. And another: why to say hi at restaurant. Why indeed!
I think I can guess what Australian poetry fraud was looking for, the Ern Malley affair.
and then, there are always the homework questions like: do you think that john muir made an effective argument for saving the redwoods? why or why not?

I should add the proviso here that many many search terms are not exposed to us bloggers, so the terms I’m sharing above are a small subset.

Other stats

I wrote four fewer posts in 2019 than in 2018, averaging just under 14 posts per month – and yet the traffic on my blog increased by more than 20% over last year. (Then again, last year’s traffic was somewhat lower than the previous year. It’s all a mystery to me!)

Merlinda Bobis Fish-hair woman Australia, the USA, and Britain, in that order, were the top three countries visiting my blog, as in 2018. In 2017, India was fourth and Canada fifth, while in 2018, the order was reversed. This year, India regained its upper hand over Canada! The Philippines remains 6th for at least the third year, largely, I think, because of interest in Merlinda Bobis’ Fish-hair woman.

I’d like to thank all of you who commented on my blog this year. My comments count increased by around 7% in 2019, which is satisfying because the respectful conversations we have here are very special to me. I particularly want to thank Lisa (ANZLitLovers) and Bill (The Australian Legend) who tolerate, both on my blog and theirs, much contrariness from me. Their tolerance and forbearance (not to mention that of the rest of you who come back here again and again) is a true measure of how positive and respectful social media can be.

Challenges, memes and other things

I only do one challenge, the AWW Challenge, which I wrapped up this week. And I only do one regular Meme, #sixdegreesofseparation run by Kate (booksaremyfavouriteandbest), but I occasionally do others. You can see all the memes I’ve done on my “memes” category link.

I also took part in Lisa’s (ANZLitLovers) Indigenous Literature Week, Bill’s (The Australian Legend) AWW Gen 1 Week, and, more casually, in Nonfiction November run by a group of bloggers, because these all relate closely to my reading interests.

Each year I like to host some guest posts with this year’s coming from Amanda who mostly reviewed titles that were missing from the AWW challenge database, and my brother Ian, who wrote two posts on his attendance at the Hobart Writers’ Festival. To read them, click this link and look at those posted in 2019. A big thanks to Amanda and Ian for their contributions.

A major highlight of the year, though, was my continued involvement as blogging mentor for the New Territory program sponsored by the ACT Writers Centre, the National Library of Australia, the Canberra Writers Festival and the Street Theatre. The program’s aim is primarily “to stoke cultural conversations in the ACT”. I enjoyed working with Shelley Burr and Rosalind Moran over the second half of the year.

And so, 2020 …

To conclude, a big thanks again to everyone who read, commented on and/or “liked” my blog last year – and to all the other wonderful bloggers out there, even though I don’t always manage to visit everyone as much as I’d like. I wish you all good reading in 2020, and look forward to discussing books with you here or there!

Finally, as I say every year, a very big thanks to the authors who write the books, and to the publishers and booksellers who get the books out there. I hope 2020 will be positive for us all.

Reading highlights for 2019

January 1, 2020December 17, 2020 / Whispering Gums / 32 Comments

Regular readers will know that my Reading Highlights post is my answer to other bloggers’ Top Reads posts. It does not contain a ranked list of the books I considered my “best” of the year, because I prefer to talk about “highlights”, which I define as those books and events that made my reading year worthwhile.

I don’t set reading goals, but I do have certain “rules of thumb”, such as trying to reduce the TBR pile, increase my reading of indigenous authors, and read some non-anglo literature. How do you think I went?

Literary highlights

Literary highlights really means literary events, and there were some inspiring ones this year:

Festival Muse: for the third year running, Muse (cafe/bookshop/event venue beloved by Canberra’s booklovers) held, in March, their Festival. It’s a busy time of year and a long weekend, but I had booked to attend the opening, as I always do, and one other event. Unfortunately, a family member’s hospitalisation meant we had to miss the opening, but I did get to Alice Pung in conversation.
Sydney Writers Festival has been live streaming selected sessions to regional locations – like Canberra – for a few years now. I attended three in 2019: Boys to Men: The masculinity crisis; Andrew Sean Greer in conversation about Less; and “I do not want to see this in print”.
Canberra Writers Festival about which I wrote 7 posts: to find them click this link and select the 2019 festival posts.
Simpson (L) and White (R), Muse, 2 Nov 2019

Author interviews/conversations: I only got to a few of the many, many offered: Jane Caro, Frank Bongiorno, Stan Grant, Jessica White and Helen Garner.
Book launches: Two of the book launches I attended this year were particularly special because it was perfectly obvious that the authors involved were surrounded by a large, warm and enthusiastic group of people who cared deeply about them and their work: Nigel Featherstone’s Bodies of men (my review) and Madelaine Dickie’s Red can origami (on my TBR).
The Constructive Critic panel: this was the year I relented and finally said yes to a request to take part in a festival panel. It was part of the Design Canberra Festival, and I did manage to write it up, here.

Reading highlights

As in previous years, I’m sharing some random observations about the year’s reading, without ranking them in any way. Just know that I’d be happy to recommend all those I mention here:

Indigenous authors: each year I try to make sure my reading diet includes a few indigenous authors, and this year I read more Indigenous Australian writers than I have in recent years, including anthologies by Anita Heiss and Us Mob Writing, Stan Grant’s essay On identity, a children’s book by the Yolngu students of Nhulunbuy Primary School, and novels by Melissa Lucashenko and Tony Birch. I also read, at last, Native American Louise Erdrich’s The bingo palace.

The locals: Canberra is said to punch above its weight in terms of, per capita, the number of authors we have here. I don’t know whether this is statistically substantiated, but we are certainly well endowed! This year I read the latest novels by two of our well-published authors, Nigel Featherstone and Karen Viggers. (I also met Kaaron Warren, who is a multi-award winning author in genres I don’t read, speculative fiction and horror.)
The “dreaded” TBR: I didn’t make impressive inroads into the TBR, but I did reduce it by four, including two highlights, Louise Erdrich’s above-named book, and Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead. Can I improve next year?
Memoirs with a difference: There is a tried-and-true formula for memoirs in which the writer relates a trauma and how they’ve risen above it, or, if they’re celebrities and sportspeople, write tell-alls about their successes and failures. These memoirs have value, but are not my chosen fare. I prefer those that do something a bit different, like, say, Jessica White’s hybrid biography-memoir, Hearing Maud, and Ros Collins’ Rosa: Memories with licence in which she teases us about whether the book is indeed memoir or fiction. Or, like those which share experiences in order to educate readers. These can be off-putting if not handled well. Fortunately, Neil H Atkinson in The last wild west and David Brooks in The grass library managed to do just this, about racism and animal rights, respectively.
The book I wasn’t planning to read: Still on the subject of memoirs, I hadn’t planned to read Vicki Laveau-Harvie’s The erratics, feeling it was going to be a bit too much of the rise-above-a-trauma style, but when it won the Stella Prize, I decided to give it a go – and was rewarded for my effort.
Some interesting voices: This year didn’t produce any unusual narrators like fetuses or skeletons, but Sayaka Murata’s mystified yet open Convenience store woman is an engaging narrator who encourages us to think about people who don’t meet societal expectations. Trent Dalton and Tim Winton sustained powerful young male voices in Boy swallows universe and The shepherd’s hut, while Amor Towles’ A gentleman in Moscow was one of the most charming narrators I’ve read for some time.
Forgotten Australians: Bill’s (The Australian Legend) annual AWW Gen weeks provide the perfect opportunity for me to feed my love of past Aussie women writers. This year Louise Mack and Capel Boake had their turn.
Older Americans: This year also saw me read some older, excellent American novels – the already-mentioned Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead and Mary McCarthy’s The group.
Death, be not proud: Amanda O’Callaghan, in her debut short story collection This taste for silence, writes about death in more ways that you could think possible, and yet leave you wanting more.
Out of left field came Kim Scott’s nicely researched local history, Katherine’s tropical housing precinct 1946-1956.
The book I’ve recommended the most: Melissa Lucashenko’s Too much lip is a perfect example of how to create engaging but flawed characters, and how to tackle deeply political issues with both humour and passion.
The one that got away: as always, there are the books that got away, which included, this year, Behrouz Boochani’s No friend but the mountains. It is still sitting in my TBR pile, accusingly.

These are just some of this year’s worthwhile reads.

Some stats …

I don’t read to achieve specific stats, but I like to keep an eye on what I’m doing to ensure some balance, all the while maintaining my particular interest in women and Australian writers:

70% of my reading was fiction, short stories and novels (versus 80% in 2018): Around 75% is my rule of thumb, so I’m happy!
64% were by women (making my average for the last five years, 2015-2019, 68%): As women writers are an important priority for me, without wanting to be exclusively so, this proportion seems reasonable.
28% were NOT by Australian writers (versus 18% in 2018): Last year, I said I wanted to redress the balance to be something more like my previous one-third non-Australian, two-thirds Australian, and I got close.
24% were published before 2000 (rather less than for the last two years which hovered around 30%): While this is ok, I’d really like to read more older books.
34% were published in 2019 (similar to last year), which pleases me, because I don’t want all my reading to be current.

Overall, it was a good reading year in terms of what I read, but less so in terms of how much. Life got in the way moreso than usual! As always, I’m grateful for all of you who read my posts, engage in discussion, recommend more books and, generally, be all-round great people to talk with. Thank you for being here.

I wish you all an excellent 2020.

What were your reading or literary highlights for the year?

Whispering Gums

Books, reading and more … with an Australian focus … written on Ngunnawal Country