Six degrees of separation, FROM All fours TO …

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Well, this Six Degrees I am in the wilds of north Queensland, somewhere in Cape York. I scheduled this two weeks ago, as I was expecting reception to be poor. I hope to visit your chains, but if I don’t for a few days, you will know why! Now, let’s just get going … 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 again, it’s a book I haven’t read, Miranda July’s latest novel, All fours, which has been listed for this year’s Women’s Prize for Fiction. It tells of a semifamous artist who plans to drive cross-country, from LA to New York, but who twenty minutes after leaving her husband and child at home, exits the freeway, checks into a nondescript motel, and starts a new life.

Glenda Guest, A week in the life of Cassandra Aberline

My first thought was to link to Anne Tyler’s Ladder of years about a married woman who ups and leaves, on a whim, and starts a new life. But I’ve not reviewed it on my blog, so think again! How about another novel about a woman who goes on a life-changing journey, Glenda Guest’s, A week in the life of Cassandra Aberline (my review). Cassandra has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and she needs to return to her past home to resolve some unrevealed issue.

My next link is draws on the journey theme – that also has a health-related aspect – Raynor Winn’s memoir, The salt path (my review), which sees a newly homeless couple, one with a newly diagnosed degenerative disease taking on England’s South West Coast Path. It’s not only an inspiring story, but it contains some gorgeous nature writing.

Helen Macdonald, H is for hawk

Another memoir that draws on nature in a way that brings spiritual renewal to the memoirist, is Helen McDonald’s H is for hawk (my review). Both Raynor and Moth Winn, and Helen Macdonald suffer sudden loss – for Raynor and Moth it’s their home and Moth’s health, while for Helen it’s her beloved father.

This is an obvious link, but I’m sticking with grief memoir for my fourth link. We are, however, returning to Australia, and the grief is for a daughter who died of a known disease, not a father who died suddenly. The book is Marion Halligan’s Words for Lucy (my review).

And now, I hope this is not cold-hearted, but we are moving from a memoir about a daughter’s death, to a novel which starts with a family gathering for the wedding of a daughter, Myfanwy Jones’ Cool water (my review). I am pleased to include this book in my chain because it is set in Far North Queensland, though somewhat south of where I am right now.

My final link is a nice, easy one – the last name of the author. The book is Gail Jones’ Salonika burning (my review) which is an historical novel set in World War 1 and was inspired by the lives of four real people, including Miles Franklin. Perhaps I could argue that it takes us back to Kate’s starting book because some of these characters set off from home with one plan and ended up doing something quite different.

Oh dear, none of this month’s books are by men, but two are by non-Australian writers, albeit both of those are English. Not much DEI (though that’s not the term we use in Australia, I have to say) here this month I’m afraid. I must rectify that for next month.

Have you read All fours and, regardless, what would you link to?

Kim’s Triple Choice Tuesday

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Back in 2010, Kimbofo (as I like to call her from her sign on/login name) started a blog series called Triple Choice Tuesday in which she asked “bloggers, writers and readers to share three books that have had a meaningful impact on them”. She saw it as a “fun way to highlight great books, discover new authors (or bloggers) and explore different perspectives”. I was one of the early participants in 2010, when my blog was still very new (see post).

The series ran for several years, and then I guess Kim ran out of puff and/or she had mined most of the bloggers and readers she knew. She restarted it in 2024, with the original three questions, but this year she restarted the series with new questions. In a way, they amount to the same thing, but there is a different twist, so I took up her offer and had second bite of the cherry. The questions did challenge me a little, because I kept returning to books and authors I’d selected first time round. How boring am I? However, of course, my reading is more diverse than that, and I did come up with new books.

Kim has now posted my Mark II selections, and you can find them here.

Thanks for the challenge, Kim, I enjoyed it. And folks, if you don’t see responses from me in the next little while (and over the past few days) it’s because I’m in the wilds of northern Queensland with very minimal Internet reception. It might be a few days before I’m back in Internet civilisation again.

Monday musings on Australian literature: Forgotten writers 11, Nancy Francis

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Like my last forgotten writer, Ruby Mary Doyle, today’s writer, though also 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 and Zora Cross, writing as Bernice May in The Australian Woman’s Mirror, also did a piece on her. As with many of my Forgotten Writers articles, I researched and posted a version of this on the Australian Women Writers’ site in April, but have saved posting here until June because I am in Far North Queensland where she lived most of her life. Seemed fitting.

Nancy Francis

Nancy Francis (1873-1954) was a poet, and writer of short stories, essays and serialised novels. She was born in Bakewell, Derbyshire, England, in 1873. According to the Obituary in The Cairns Post, her mother was the surviving descendant of the Beaton family, which was connected, through service, with Mary Stuart, Queen of Scotland. Her Yorkshire-born father was a well-known musician who had played a cornet solo in front of Queen Victoria. Nancy developed her musical talent, and apparently had “a beautiful and unusual soprano voice”. She also wrote verse as a hobby and contributed to various periodicals.

According to the Obituary, Nancy married Frederick James Francis in 1900. They lived in London and other country centres, before coming to Australia, just before the 1914-18 war. With three young daughters, they travelled to the remote Bloomfield River, in Far North Queensland, where her husband joined his brother in various mining ventures. During this period Francis “acquired her exhaustive knowledge of the North Australian bush and its aboriginal inhabitants, of whose character and folklore she made a sympathetic study”. She increased her output over this time, with her verses, articles and short stories appearing regularly in the Bulletin and other southern periodicals. Much of this writing appeared under the nom-de-plume of “Black Bonnet”, which Bernice May (Zora Cross) ascribes to her love of Henry Lawson (who wrote a poem titled Black bonnet”).

After some time – not specified in the Obituary – the family moved to the small mining township of Rossville outside Cooktown, where Frederick and two brothers continued working in mining and other development. The Obituary says that “among these jungle clad hills she produced some of her best literary work, including many of the poems later collected and published in book form”. In 1927, Bernice May wrote about Francis and her daughters – who all became published writers in their teens – and praised the quality of their verse. May clearly had some correspondence with Nancy and her daughters, and was impressed by what the girls had achieved under their mother’s home schooling. Francis wrote to her, “How I long at times for a creepy novel, a box of chocolates and no bright ideas that nag to be put on paper”, which May says reminded her of Mary Gilmore who “in her first passionate days of great poetry declared she could not take her hands out of the cooking-basin and washing-up dish fast enough to run away to her pen and write some fiery line that had flashed to her across her domestic work”. Bernice May understood the challenge faced by women artists.

In 1928, Nancy and her husband moved to Cairns, but not long after, in 1929-30, she travelled back to England. On her return she “joined her husband at Herberton where she lived until her death”, on 28 June 1954. Her husband, who had also worked as a freelance journalist, predeceased her in 1942.

According to the Obituary, she was actively involved in community activities, including being a member of the C.W.A. from its inception, and President of the local branch for eight years. She also worked for the Red Cross and Patriotic Associations during both world wars. She remained a journalist throughout her life and was keenly interested in politics and world affairs. She also left behind four children, the three daughters (Patricia, Kathleen, and Christobel) and a son. The Obituary describes her as follows: “Generous and warmhearted, and with a vast fund of kindness for the underprivileged, she retained the standards of her English upbringing in a new country and a changing world”.

AustLit focuses on her writing. She wrote under many variations of her name and initials – N. Francis, Nancy Christobel Francis, N. C. Francis, N. C. F, N. F., Nancy C. Francis – as well as her Black Bonnet pen-name. They list 426 works by her under her Nancy Francis name variants, and another 62 under Black Bonnet, so she was prolific. And yet, she does not appear in the plethora of reference books, histories and guides I have on Australian literature. Why? Perhaps it’s because she spent her life in such a remote part of Australia, away from the literary world, though she did have writing published down south. Or, maybe it’s simply that for all her writing, she had only one published book, her poetry collection, Feet in the night and other poems, which was published by The Cairns Post in 1947. All her other writing appeared in newspapers and magazines/periodicals.

Indeed, this book’s reviewer in Mackay’s Daily Mercury (28 August 1948) implies that the ephemeral nature of newspapers is behind obscurity when they write that “beautifully hewn lines of poetry, melodious verses which have stirred the infrequent verse-readers for a morning half-hour, lie … forever entombed in rows of bound newspapers in libraries”. Fortunately, however, Francis had managed to compile a volume from her output, and the reviewer liked the result:

“FEET IN THE NIGHT” is … taken from the first poem of the first section, which deals sympathetically with the vanishing natives of this continent, who move like shadows on the hill, or ghosts in the scrub, along dark green valleys and dim waterways out to where the jungle ends. The other sections celebrate the Galllpoli era, romance, soft and melancholy, the scenic glories of the North, and memories of England and the out-bound voyage

We do not hesitate to express the opinion that almost every poem in the collection was well worth rescuing from its dusty obscurity. These verses have been polished and polished again. All are graceful, delicate and restrained.

According to AustLit, her writing for Queensland newspapers included essays in series, such as her studies of North Queensland Aboriginal culture, titled ‘By Forest, Scrub and Shore’ (1939-1940), which include detailed discussions of customs and practices in the region; a series of historical essays on ‘The Anglican Church in North Queensland’ (1936-1938); and many essays on Captain Cook. AustLit also says that her travels Western Europe and Northern Africa around 1930 inspired several poems which expressed her identification with the North Queensland landscape and a longing for her North Queensland home. It seems she travelled overseas more than once, with The Courier-Mail (26 April 1938) reporting on a planned trip to “the Continent” in 1938.

Nancy Francis may not (yet) have come to the serious attention of those documenting Australia’s literary history, but back in 1927, Bernice May was impressed, writing that,

“One does not know whether her crisp articles on nature study, her accounts of the blacks and their ways, or her verses are the most remarkable”.

She also compared Nancy and her daughters to the Brontë sisters, no less, saying

It was not until the Bronte girls left Yorkshire for Belgium that their hearts turned back to the scenes of their youth and they began to write of them with the wonderful feeling which has never since been surpassed in fiction written by women. I sometimes wonder if when this little outpost moves, when perhaps the mother and daughters become separated from the scenes of their early days, something missing in our fiction will be supplied—the great story of the lonely, mighty North.

This is not all she said, but you can read the rest at the link below.

The piece I shared on the AWW site is “The black snake”, which, as the title suggests, references the “snake” motif frequently found in Australian bush stories (including Henry Lawson’s). It draws on familiar short story tropes to tell a good story, and shows a writer who knows her craft and how to entertain her audience.

Sources

  • Bernice May (aka Zora Cross), “Black Bonnet and her daughters“, The Australian Woman’s Mirror, 3 (26),  24 May 1927 [Accessed: 8 April 2025]
  • “Black Bonnet“, Daily Mercury, 28 August 1948 [2 April 2025]
  • Black Bonnet, AustLit [5 April 2025]
  • Nancy Francis, AustLit [5 April 2025]
  • Nancy Francis, “The black snake“, The Cairns Post, 28 December 1935 [Accessed: 8 April 2025]
  • Obituary, The Cairns Post, 10 July 1954 [Accessed: 2 April 2025]

Jane Austen, Emma (Vol. 2, redux 2025)

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EmmaCovers

In April, I wrote a post on Volume 1 of Emma, sharing the thoughts that had come to me during my Jane Austen’s group’s current slow read of the novel. This month, I’m sharing some ideas that Volume 2 raised for me.

I wrote in my Volume 1 post that, during this read, what popped out for me was the idea of young people lacking guidance. It relates to issues like character development and to themes like parenting (which Austen regularly explores in her novels.) The question with these slow reads always is, will an idea that pops up in one Volume continue in the next? Well, in this case my answer is yes and no.

Jane Austen, Emma, Penguin

What I mean by this is that this notion expanded for me in Volume 2 to encompass the idea of “nature versus nurture”. Now, I’m not saying that Austen was specifically engaging in that debate, but that she has a lot to say about both aspects of our character. Before I continue, I will just share that I did wonder when the “nature versus nurture” debate started?

My searches, including via Wikipedia and two AI services, revealed that while ideas about innate (nature) vs. learned traits (nurture) can be traced back to ancient philosophy, the “nature versus nurture” debate, as a formal concept, began in the mid-1800s with Francis Galton, a cousin of Charles Darwin, who coined the term in his 1874 publication, “English Men of Science: Their Nature and Nurture”. In case you are interested, Chat GPT advised that philosophers like Plato and Aristotle debated discussed the role of “heredity and environment in shaping individuals” with Plato leaning towards nature (“innate knowledge”) and Aristotle towards nurture (“experience and environment”). And Wikipedia identifies Chen Seng having asked a similar question in 209 BCE. These aren’t the only people to have thought about the question, and Wikipedia’s article is useful if you are interested. But I’ll move on as the history of the debate is not my focus here.

What kept popping up for me – as I looked to see how my guidance-of-young-people theme was developing – were various comments Austen was making about nature and nurture. I’ll share just a few.

The first one to come to my attention in Volume 2, concerned Jane Fairfax, who was orphaned as a toddler and brought up, at first, by her grandmother, Mrs Bates, and aunt, Miss Bates. Austen describes her as a three-year-old

“her being taught only what very limited means could command, and growing up with no advantages of connection or improvement to be engrafted on what nature had given her in a pleasing person, good understanding, and warm-hearted, well-meaning relations.” 

So, “nature had given her” a good start, and her relations had nurtured her as best they could with their “very limited means”. However, soon after, the Campbells (the family of a friend) had taken her in:

“She had fallen into good hands, known nothing but kindness from the Campbells, and been given an excellent education. Living constantly with right-minded and well-informed people, her heart and understanding had received every advantage of discipline and culture”.

And then, Austen seems to make the point that Jane Fairfax’s innate character, her disposition, was such that good nurturing had found fertile opportunity: “Her disposition and abilities were equally worthy of all that friendship could do…” Unfortunately, with no money, her destiny looked likely to be governessing, which the Campbells knew and did their best to prepare her for, but that’s another story …

As for Frank Churchill, in my last post regarding guidance, I noted that Austen suggests that, with his guardian family (his aunt and uncle at Enscombe), he had been left to his own devices with little guidance other than “his own comfort”. In this volume, Austen says more about his nature

“He seemed to have all the life and spirit, cheerful feelings, and social inclinations of his father, and nothing of the pride or reserve of Enscombe.”

It seems that at least some of the Churchills’ nature had not been nurtured into Frank. Ironically, it’s Emma’s father, Mr Woodhouse, who identifies some flaws in his behaviour, calling him “not quite the thing”, though his reasons are fussy.

And then there’s the third character whom we meet in Volume 2, Mrs Elton. These are Emma’s thoughts, and she is a snob, but nonetheless, she hones in on some points relevant to my thinking:

and the quarter of an hour quite convinced her that Mrs. Elton was a vain woman, extremely well satisfied with herself, and thinking much of her own importance; that she meant to shine and be very superior, but with manners which had been formed in a bad school, pert and familiar; that all her notions were drawn from one set of people, and one style of living; that, if not foolish, she was ignorant, and that her society would certainly do Mr. Elton no good.

We don’t know how much of this comes from Mrs Elton’s nature, but Emma does lay a much blame for her behaviour and character on her nurture.

Then there’s sweet Harriet, whom we met in Volume 1, and whom Emma considered, then, “not clever, but she had a sweet, docile, grateful disposition” and only needed to be “guided by any one she looked up to”. In Volume 2, her nature is again referenced, in terms of “the many vacancies of Harriet’s mind”! Poor Harriet. What will happen to her? Wait for Volume 3!

Finally, it’s Emma’s brother-in-law Mr John Knightley, who shows particular sense, when he provides these instructions to Emma on caring for his sons while he’s away:

” .. Do not spoil them, and do not physic* them.” 
“I rather hope to satisfy you both,” said Emma; “for I shall do all in my power to make them happy, which will be enough for Isabella; and happiness must preclude false indulgence and physic.”

[* Meaning, don’t medicate them as their mother, Emma’s sister, is wont to do.]

There’s no reference here to specific moral, or any other education, but we can infer from this, and our knowledge of the man, that he is well aware of the importance of good nurturing to his sons.

Of course, there were other issues that intrigued me in Volume 2, but these ideas are the ones I want to document this go round with Emma.

Any thoughts?

Monday musings on Australian literature: Trove treasures (13), American scholar on Australian culture (1952)

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Help Books Clker.com
(Courtesy OCAL, via clker.com)

While researching Trove for April’s 1952 Year Club, I came across some articles about an American Fulbright scholar’s critique of Australian culture, and thought it a worthy topic for my occasional Trove Treasures series. The scholar was John Hough, who was Professor of Classics at Colorado State University, and he was finishing his year’s scholarship at University of Sydney.

Grafton’s Daily Examiner (22 November 1952) titled its article “Criticised aspects of Australian life“, while the Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners’ Advocate (also 22 November 1952) titled theirs “Australian ways slated by American“. It was also reported, along similar lines, in Sydney’s Sun and The Daily Mirror, and Melbourne’s The Argus. According to the Daily Examiner, Hough was speaking at an Australian-American luncheon at the Trocadero, and had said “he was appalled at the prejudice that had grown up against migrants”. He said that migrants to America “came of their own accord, and had to take their chance of making a living” but there was “no need for Australia to make the same mistakes”. And then he identified a number of other aspects of Australian culture that he felt were going wrong:

  • Mistakes in the treatment of aborigines.
  • The almost exclusive use of American and other imported songs, and records of oversea artists on the radio. 
  • He did not know why Australia did not make more use of its own songs and singers, instead of listening to people who “occasionally croon, sing, and cry.” 
  • The attitude of Australian “upper-level society” to Australian culture, which it belittled, and the denial that there was any such thing as Australian literature.

None of the articles expanded much on these, and when they did it was brief and focused on Hough’s critique about migrants. For example, the Daily Mirror (21 November) explained that

He said America had made terrible mistakes in migration, but that there was no reason why Australia, should make them. He said he regretted the tendency to stress that a man was a New Australian when he got into trouble.

The Sun (21 November) reported it a little differently:

“In America our migrants came of their own accord, and had to take their chances of making a living,” he said. 
“We also did not have the benefit of the study of sociology available today”. 

A couple reported that he’d been to the Greta migrant camp, and hadn’t liked what he’d seen. Most of the other issues were either ignored in the reports, or were listed as “other” aspects.

However, a few days later, on 8 December, the Daily Examiner, took on Hough’s comments – the only one to do so as far as I’ve found – and discussed them in an article simply titled, “Australian culture“. They argued, for example, that Hough had criticised Australia for not being “very hospitable towards migrants or new ideas” but had also said, contradictorily, that “we make exclusive use of American and imported songs and records of overseas artists on the radio”.

The article continues that Hough “emphasises” that while “we have our own rich array of local talent”, we “prefer to ignore Australian artists … and listen to those who croon sing and cry!” It doesn’t disagree with this preference. Its point, rather, is that this is “easy enterment [sic] but it isn’t culture”. This narrow idea of culture is not uncommon I think.

Anyhow, the article then takes on Hough’s statement that Australia’s upper-level society “belittled Australian culture and denied that there is any such thing as Australian literature”. It argues that this “belittles our land as much as it belittles our people”. Then, in its parochial way, says:

We in Grafton are rightfully proud of our Jacaranda Festival. Not only because it provides gay and whole-some entertainment, but because it sets a standard of culture that is lovely and fundamentally Australian.

But there’s more … it argues that Australian has “many scientists, inventors, physicians, writers, artists and musicians whose names and works shine like gems in any hall of culture” and calls these people “true Australians from the land they love”. Ignoring them, the paper says, “does them and their nation grave disservice”. Then, in another statement that comes straight from its times, it points out that:

Australia Day for example might have a more popular appeal if we used it to praise our famous men, the glory of their times. 

There’s more, including a them-versus-us statement which promotes the value of the “country Press”, and has a dig at the metropolitan Press which, it claims, “frequently says that writings about Australia have no publicity value”. The result is that

… our mighty land mainly goes unhonoured and unsung, and Australian literature and art is said not to exist. The great deeds of the pioneers, the fortitude, skill and’ patience of the modern countryman are overlooked. The essential loveliness of our land is side-tracked. Yet these things form the basis of our culture, and until they are recognised and publicised our mighty land will remain a Lilliput among the nations of the world.

It’s a beautiful bit of self-defence that turns Hough’s criticism into, at least in part, a pat on their own regional backs for writing about – for recognising, in other words – the true value of Australian culture.

I do enjoy Trove.

Shelley Burr, Vanish (#BookReview)

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With Vanish, the third novel in her Lane Holland series, Burr mixes it up yet again, which appeals to me because my main reason for not liking genre fiction is that it can be formulaic. I know this is why many like it, and I understand that need for comforting reading. It’s just not my need.

So, a brief recap. In Wake (my review), we are introduced to a private investigator, Lane Holland, who arrives in a remote, outback, fictional town to investigate an old missing persons case. He’s keen and caring, but he also has his own agenda – and the resolution is shocking. The next book, Ripper aka Murder town (my review), is set in a different country town. It initially looked like something different, as Lane is in prison from Wake‘s fallout, but it soon becomes a dual investigation story that coalesces when it turns into both a murder and a missing persons case.

And now, book 3. It seems you really can’t keep a good PI down, even if he is in prison! Vanish is set a few years later. Lane is still in prison but, because of prison governor Carver’s vested interest, he soon manages to get himself on a pre-parole release program in order to continue the unsolved investigation from Ripper. If you’ve read Ripper you’ll know what that is, and if you haven’t, it becomes clear very soon. My point, though, is that once again Burr has produced a highly readable crime novel that manages to be a bit different from the preceding book, while retaining enough familiarity for those invested in her characters and worldview. It’s a fine balance that Burr has trodden nicely.

Like its predecessors, Vanish belongs to the rural noir sub-genre, and is consequently, noir-ish – or Australian Gothic – in tone. It features characters we have met in the previous novels, including Lane Holland, his sister Lynnie, and his first client Mina McCreery. Further, its plot centres again on a missing person. In Vanish, however, there’s more than one missing person. A serial missing persons case!

Some stay. Some leave. Some disappear.

“Some stay. Some leave. Some disappear” appears above the title in the book’s first Australian edition (as you can see in the cover pic above). What it references is the main setting of the novel – a farm near Hume Weir, southeast of Albury, an area Burr knows well. At the novel’s opening, Lane has tracked down several missing people as having visited this farm, then disappearing from view – hence the tag line. What is this farm, and why have some people disappeared? Lane wants to find out and Carver, with his daughter still missing, is happy to help him do so.

Consequently, with ankle bracelet, a prison guard minder, and an agreement for him to work at the farm, Lane arrives – but not without a mysterious-sounding death having just happened on the road in. This, of course, captures Lane’s attention – and we’re off.

Now Lane is, of course, your suspicious type. He takes nothing at face value, and he closely observes all that’s going on around him. There’s something about this farm that doesn’t feel right. Is it a community of like-minded people who want to escape their old lives and live more simply, growing their own food and reducing their energy impact on the world? Or is it a cult? How genuine is the owner Sam Karpathy, not to mention his recently deceased father? What do the people in the nearby township know, and why do they seem evasive when Lane tries to find out? And, why is a certain person from a previous novel there too?

Oh, and who is the trapped, sick, or injured person whose story is told in short italicised sections interspersed with the main narrative? (It added to the intrigue, and I didn’t guess it at all.)

As in her previous novel, Burr’s builds her crime story around wider issues. In Ripper for example it was “dark tourism”. Here, it is the idea of people wishing to live eco-minded, sustainable lives. So, as the investigation progresses, Burr also interrogates what this sort of life means in terms of whether or not you compromise and why, whether you stockpile for an end-of-world scenario, whether you eschew western medicine, and so on. These are questions Lane considers as he tries to understand the community he is living in. And it starts with the controlling Karpathy.

Lane, as he needs to be, is a trustworthy narrator for us. The novel is told third person, through his eyes, and he brings us along with him, sharing his thoughts and explaining his processes. His awareness of body language and his experience of human behaviour guide his actions. I loved those details. There’s risk and tension, some creeping around the farm at night, a locked room, magic mushrooms, and more. I didn’t find it edge-of-the-seat suspenseful, but I don’t like that anyhow, so the level of stress was just about right for me. The plot builds slowly, sending us off in various directions, and keeping us uncertain as we consider what Lane sees and questions. Is Karpathy, for example, coercive or simply wanting to keep control of a dream he is vested in. The denouement, when it comes, unfolds quickly, and at just the right time.

I enjoyed the read. I have been invested in Lane from the beginning, and he continued to interest me in this book. He’s conscientious, intelligent and decent, but, appealingly, is not always sure of himself, particularly when it comes to relationships. Also, Burr evokes place well. The farm, which is set in mountains just far enough from a little town to feel isolated, feels believable, as do the natural disasters – flood and bushfire – which threaten it.

My only question now is, will we see more of Lane? As a convicted felon he will not be able to renew his investigator licence. There is a hint at the end that there might be a way around it. Time will tell, but if you are a Lane Holland fan, I think you can have hope.

Shelley Burr
Vanish
Sydney: Hachette Australia, 2023
384pp.
ISBN: 9780733652158

(Review copy – an uncorrected book proof, hence no quotes – courtesy Hachette Australia)

Stella Prize 2025 Winner announced

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The 2025 Stella Prize winner was announced tonight at a special event at the Sydney Writers’ Festival, and the winner is …

Michelle de Kretser’s Theory & practice

How happy am I that a book I reviewed only last week won the award! It is a provocative and thoroughly engrossing book in all the ways. I don’t feel I did full justice to it, but I did love thinking about what she was doing. It’s playfully mind-bending, but is also very serious about the art of the novel, what it can be, and what it can say. I can’t of course say whether I would have chosen it, as I’ve only read two of the shortlisted books. However, it is a wonderful book, and, when it comes to acceptance speeches, de Kretser is up there with the best. (You can see it at the Stella site) She was compassionate and eloquent. She made a beautiful but pointed statement commemorating two groups of women: the Stella founders who rejected business as usual in the literary world, and the women and girls of Gaza who are suffering under the business-as-usual actions of Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

She also said:

“I’m still afraid. But I’ve just accepted a prize that is not about obedience. It’s not about feel-good narratives, it’s not about marketing, it’s not even about creativity – Stella is about changing the world.”

Michelle de Kretser on a screen

It was pure class.

The announcement was made at a special event at the Sydney Writers’ Festival. It involved: an introduction by Fiona Sweet, Stella’s CEO; a discussion between three of the judges (Astrid Edwards, Leah-Jing McIntosh and Rick Morton) about the shortlisted books; the awarding of the prize; Michelle de Kretser’s recorded acceptance speech (see here); and a conversation between her (in Sussex) and Rick Morton.

Just to remind you, the short list was:

  • Jumaana Abdu, Translations (fiction, kimbofo’s review)
  • Melanie Cheng, The burrow (fiction, my review)
  • Santilla Chingaipe, Black convicts: How slavery shaped Australia (non-fiction/history)
  • Michelle de Kretser, Theory & practice (fiction, my review)
  • Amy McQuire, Black witness: The power of Indigenous media (non-fiction/essays)
  • Samah Sabawi, Cactus pear for my beloved: A family story from Gaza (memoir/non-fiction)

And the judges were 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.

I have now read nine of the 13 winners: Carrie Tiffany’s Mateship with birds (2013, my review), Clare Wright’s The forgotten rebels of Eureka (2014, my review), Emily Bitto’s The strays (2015, my review), Charlotte Wood’s The natural way of things (2016, my review), Heather Rose’s The museum of modern love (2017, my review), Alexis Wright’s Tracker (2018), Vicki Laveau-Harvie’s The erratics (2019, my review), Jess Hill’s See what you made me do (2020, my review), Evie Wyld’s Bass Rock (2021), Evelyn Araluen’s Dropbear (2022, my review), Sarah Holland-Batt’s The jaguar (2023), Alexis Wright’s Praiseworthy (2024), and Michelle de Kretser’s Theory & practice (2025, my review).

Thoughts anyone?

Monday musings on Australian literature: Grandparent-lit

/ Whispering Gums / 47 Comments

Last week’s Monday Musings about the Les Murray Award for Refugee Recognition reminded me of the assumptions we make when engrossed in our own little world. When I first heard of this award being made to the slam poet Huda the Goddess, I assumed it was in the name of the Australian poet, Les Murray, only to find it was named for Les Murray the sports commentator. Various commenters weighed in with which Les Murray they first thought of when they heard the name.

Well, this ambiguity raised its head again this week’s post. It was inspired by Western Port Writes first literary event for 2025, held back in February. It was a panel discussion themed “The Family Lode” and featured Australian writers Tony Birch, Melanie Cheng, and Kylie Ladd in conversation with literary/arts editor Jason Steger. I heard about it through Steger’s weekly emailed newsletter:

‘Grandparents underpin each family and story,’ says Steger. ‘They are a hugely important anchor to family. We should have a category called Grandparent-Lit.’

Grandparent-Lit? My ears perked up, and I thought that would make a fun Monday Musings in the future, one of those posts where I could introduce the idea and then let you all fly with your suggestions from your neck of the reading world.

However, first I did a quick internet search to see if there’s anything out there on the topic. And, faster than you can say grandparent-lit, up popped an article from The Guardian published in late 2020. It was by Imogen Dewey and was titled “Jolly, artificial and extremely satisfying: the simple joy of ‘Grandma lit'”. Great, I thought, but my pleasure was short-lived, because her idea of “grandma [not grandparent] lit” was something very different. It was in a series framed “How I fell in love with …” which, in Dewey’s case, was – wait for it – crime fiction! For Dewey “grandma-lit” is not books about grandmas (or grandparents) but about ‘the sort of books grandmothers love … The sort some people refer to as “comforting” or “cosy”, in that Certain Tone reserved also for “comfort eating”, “comfy clothes”, “comfortable relationships” – the insinuation being that it is slovenly to crave to be comfortable’. Oh well, back to the drawing board I went.

AI – that little summary at the top of most internet searches these days – knew what I was talking about. It said this:

“Grandparent lit” is a literary genre that often explores the relationships between grandparents and their grandchildren, focusing on themes of intergenerational connections, family history, and the unique perspectives of different generations. It can include various forms of literature, from picture books for children to novels for adults, with some works specifically targeting grandparents or exploring the grandparenting experience.

AI suggests common themes in these books: Intergenerational connections which explore the relationships between grandparents and grandchildren; family history and cultural heritage meaning stories, traditions and values are shared with younger generations; the grandparenting experience which examines the challenges and rewards of being a grandparent; and memory and nostalgia which encompasses reflecting on past events and relationships.

And I found a 2024 post in Substack, titled “Where are grandparents in literature“, by novelist and journalist Penny Hancock. She writes that “she’d been told by publishers that people don’t want to read about older people’s lives because no one wants to think about getting old”. She argues that this presupposes that grandparents are old (whatever that means) and that readers are narrow-minded. Whatever the reason, she found that, with the exception of children’s books, it is unusual to get a grandparent’s point of view in novels. She asks whether we are still marginalising and generalising a group that has always been subject to prejudice. Anyhow she names a few great books, which most of you will know (but check out the post!) Meanwhile …

Select list of (mostly recent) grandparent-lit books

Now, here is where the fun starts. I will share a few books (mostly novels but with some exceptions) in which grandparents feature significantly – and then hand it over to you. I am not including children’s books because they are too numerous and geared to a different audience to my readers, albeit some of us are grandparents and might like to promote ourselves! (If you are interested, Readings has produced a list of picturebooks for grandparents.)

My books will, of course, be Australian, but you can share anything you like (even if you’re Australian. I’m generous like that!)

Book cover
  • Tony Birch, The white girl (my review): a novel about Odette, a First Nations grandmother, who is determined to save her grand-daughter from falling under the control of white authorities.
  • Melanie Cheng, The burrow (my review): a novel about grief, and the role played by a rabbit and the grandmother in restoring some sort of balance.
  • Helen Garner, The season (my review): nonfiction/memoir about Garner’s spending a football season with her teenage grandson, and the insights she gains into boys and men (among other things).
  • Elizabeth Jolley, The orchard thieves (my review): a meditative novel in which a grandmother ponders the meaning of family and children, and quietly uses her wisdom and humanity to rebalance some family tensions.
  • Jeanine Leane, Purple threads (my review): a First Nations multigenerational story told by two girls, their matriarch grandmother Nan, and two aunts, all working together to forge an authentic and sincere way to live when you are “not the ideal colour”.
  • Eleanor Limprecht, The passengers (my review): dual narrative journey story of an American war-bride returning to her home after 68 years, with her 20-something Australian granddaughter.
  • Favell Parrett, There was still love (my review): a novel about two Czech sisters, one who ends up in Melbourne while the other remains in Prague, told mainly through the eyes of their grandchildren who learn that love can survive, that home is wherever you make it, and the importance of keeping on going.
  • Andra Putnis, Stories my grandmothers never told me (my review): dual biography-memoir of the author’s two Latvian grandmothers, with reflections on her relationship with them.
Cover

Various themes recur here, including the offering of protection and support, showing resilience, and passing on traditions. While some of these stories are warm-hearted, none are sentimental. These grandparents tend to be real and flawed, with their own demons, but they also tend to offer, either directly or indirectly, some wisdom about how to keep on going, even when times are hard.

Now, do you have any favourite grandparent stories?

Michelle de Kretser, Theory & practice (#BookReview)

/ Whispering Gums / 28 Comments

Michelle de Kretser’s latest novel, Theory & practice, is a perfect example of why I should follow my own reading advice, which is that as soon as I finish a book I should go back and read the opening paragraphs, if not pages. I like to do this because there often lies clues to what the book is really about. It certainly is with Theory & practice.

Theory & practice starts like a typical novel, whatever that is. We are in Switzerland in 1957, with an unnamed 23-year-old Australian geologist who is waiting for a bus to go up the mountain. Meanwhile, back in Australia “rivers of Southern Europeans are pouring into Sydney”. The story continues, with a flashback to his living in the country with his grandmother when he was six years old. During this time he steals her precious ring, and lets her blame her “native” worker Pearlie. The story, told third person, returns to 1957 and a potential tragedy when, writes the narrator, “the novel I was writing stalled”. And, just like that, we switch to first person.

I wrote to my American friend after I finished it, that I needed to do a bit of thinking. I saw an underlying thread concerning colonialism, I wrote, but how does that tie in with the idea of “theory and practice”, and with my glimmer of something about the messiness of life and how it can be represented in art. And, to make things more complicated – in this rather slim book – the narrator is writing a thesis on Virginia Woolf’s The waves, in which Woolf attempted to play with the novel form, calling her novel a “playpoem”. In Theory & practice, de Kretser also plays with the form, but by using fiction, essay and memoir in a way that nods a little to autofiction, but that feels more intensely focused on ideas than narrative.

So, here goes … With the jump to first person, our narrator introduces us to an essay titled “Tunnel vision”, by the British-Israeli architect Eyal Weizman, that she read in the London Review of Books. In this essay Weizman discusses what de Kretser characterises as “the application of Situationist theory to colonising practice”. She kept finding herself returning to the idea of “theory and practice” and her recognition that “the smooth little word ‘and’ makes the transition from theory to practice seem effortless” when she knew was not the case. She knew all about “the messy gap between the two”. Her novel had stalled because it wasn’t what she needed to write. What she needed to write about was the “breakdowns between theory and practice”.

We then shift gear again, and flash back to when the narrator is a child and learning the piano, learning both musical theory and piano practice. The relationship between the two might have been obvious to her teacher but it wasn’t to her.

“messy human truths” (p. 38)

Are you getting the drift? I thought I was, but the novel shifted gear again to 1986 when the narrator, at the age of 24, moves from Sydney to Melbourne to undertake an MA in English. Her topic is to be Virginia Woolf and gender, drawing on feminist theory. She soon uncovers a confronting thread of racism in Woolf’s diaries – a reference to “a poor little mahogany coloured wretch”. This was E.W. Perera, a Ceylonese barrister, politician and freedom-fighter man who, according to Woolf, had only two subjects, “the character of the Government, & the sins of the Colonial Office”. He made Woolf uncomfortable, though husband Leonard sympathised. The problem for our “mahogany-coloured” narrator is that Woolf’s discomfort makes her uncomfortable, but her thesis supervisor, Paula, won’t agree to her changing direction to explore racism. Our narrator’s solution, on the advice of an artist friend, is to “write back to Woolf”, to find or create her own truth in Woolf’s story.

Throughout the novel various parallels are drawn which illuminate the theme, even if they don’t resolve the mess. In her personal life, the narrator’s “practice” – a love affair with a man attached to another woman he claims to love – keeps butting up against her understanding of feminist theory and its key idea of supporting the sisterhood. Desire and obsession, she was finding, trumps theory every time. How to reconcile this? We are thrown into academia, with its politics and jealousies, and St Kilda’s colourful bohemian life, as she reaches for answers to questions both academic and personal.

Concurrently, there is the mother-parallel, one in which regular phone calls from her mother offering practical help and advice interrupt the text and narrative flow, and contrast with the Woolfmother whose abstract presence continues to complicate our narrator’s research and understanding. On the one hand, says our narrator, Woolf said ‘”Imagine” and opened the doors to our minds’, but on the other, she was “a snob and a racist and an antisemite”. Both are as complicated – “messy”, dare I say – as any mother-daughter relationship.

All this is told in prose that is captivating with its changing rhythms from the tersely poetic – “the evening felt jumpy, spoiling for a fight” – to realistic description, and natural dialogue.

Eventually our narrator manages to squish her “ideas about Woolf’s novels into the corset of Theory”, but, perhaps recalling her earlier awareness that “theory taught us … to notice what was unimportant”, it does not fill her with pride. It does, however, fulfil the university’s requirements and she can move on.

And so does the novel, making another leap to the end of the twentieth century, and on into the 21st century. She has more to say about the ways humans abuse others – as she’d been abused as a child, as Woolf and her sister had been abused, and as Donald Friend, in an interesting late discussion in the novel, abused young Balinese boys. Such is the legacy of sexism, racism and colonialism.

Now, how does this short but invigorating novel bring all this together? By reminding us, as the novel has done all the way through, that life is messy, that neither art (including the novel) nor theory can provide the answer, though they might provide insights. This is why, I’d say, de Kretser continues to play with the novel form, to find ways to convey the reality (not the realism) of life. I will end with a Woolf quote shared by de Kretser two-thirds through the novel, because I think she would apply it to herself:

“I will go on adventuring, changing, opening my mind & my eyes, refusing to be stamped & stereotyped.”

Kimbofo also loved this book.

Michelle de Kretser
Theory & practice
Melbourne: Text Publishing, 2024
184pp.
ISBN: 9781923058149

(Review copy courtesy Text Publishing)

Monday musings on Australian literature: Les Murray Award for Refugee Recognition

/ Whispering Gums / 14 Comments

Now THIS is something different for Monday Musings. Yes, it is Australian, but it’s not a literary award. Its full title is The Australia for UNHCR – SBS Les Murray Award for Refugee Recognition and, according to Australia’s UNHCR website, it “recognises and celebrates the contribution of refugees who are shining a light on the situation of forcibly displaced people”. The winner receives $10,000, which is donated by SBS, as part of their goal to promote positive awareness and understanding of refugees.

The site explains that the Award, which is supported by Murray’s daughters, Tania and Natalie Murray, is “offered in memory of Les Murray AM, the iconic sports broadcaster and much-loved host of The World Game on SBS television”. In other words, NOT Les Murray the poet. This Les Murray (1945-2017) was born László Ürge in Hungary, but fled Hungary with his family as a refugee in 1956, arriving in Australia in 1957.

Wikipedia’s page, linked on his name, says that he began work as a journalist in 1971, and was also lead singer of a small rock music group, The Rubber Band. He joined the Australian television station, Network Ten, as a commentator in 1977, which is apparently when he changed his name to Les Murray. He moved to Australia’s multicultural broadcasting service, SBS in 1980, initially as a Hungarian language subtitler, but soon turned to sports commentary – football, primarily. In 2011, he won the inaugural “Blogger of the Year” award at the FFDU Australian Football Media awards.

UNHCR says he used his public profile and his own refugee experience to advocate for refugee rights, and this, of course, is what’s behind these awards. To be eligible for the Award nominates must “have settled in Australia as refugees”; “demonstrate significant contributions to raising awareness of refugees and forcibly displaced people in Australia”; “be committed to continuing to engage the Australian public in support of refugees”; and be willing “to engage in Australia for UNHCR and SBS events” including participating in media coverage as requested.

The award was first made in 2022, and the winners have been:

  • 2022: Danijel Malbasa: former Yugoslav refugee, now “a powerful advocate, writer and lawyer”
  • 2023: Anyier Yuol: former South Sudanese refugee, recognised for “her diverse achievements across sport, women’s empowerment and refugee advocacy”.
  • 2024: Hedayat Osyan: a former refugee from Afghanistan, founder of a leading social enterprise that employs refugees in the construction industry

So, as I said, not a literary award per se. However, the 2025 winner, whom I read about in With You (Australia for UNHCR’s newsletter), is Huda Fadlelmawla, otherwise known as Huda the Goddess. She is an “internationally renowned slam poet”, hence her relevance to my Monday Musings.

Huda the Goddess

Fadlelmawla tells her story in With You (Issue 1, 2025, p. 7). I’ll provide a quick summary, but you can read it at the link. Her mother decided they should flee Sudan when Huda was 5 years old, because, under the dictatorship, her mother couldn’t work properly, put her daughter through school, help the family, or “even move around freely as a woman”. They spent 5 years in Egypt, living in poverty, before coming to Australia, when Huda was 10.

She writes of her mother’s telling her this was her chance to be what she wanted to be, and she was determined to take it. But, school wasn’t easy:

In school, I wasn’t good at English at all. Writing was just not my subject. But I had a very, very good teacher in Grade 7. She was the one who motivated me to master verbal language. She also asked me to do the graduation speech. It was the first time I was properly on stage. I thought I was going to throw up. I don’t even remember what I said, but I got a standing ovation from everyone.

After school, she started a nursing degree, but also started attending events. It was here that she saw/heard/met a poet named Anisa Nandaula, who encouraged her to do an open mic. She writes of the impact of the experience of doing open mics:

That was a time in my life when I didn’t know who I was outside of being smart and being a good oldest daughter, a good refugee. It was the first time it wasn’t about how good I was. It was about how I made people feel. I wanted to make people feel better – that was now my objective.

She must have been “good” because in 2021 she won the Australian Poetry Slam. She describes herself as “an improvised poet”, meaning she makes up her poems on stage. They are “not pre-written, edited” works. What she does is “deeply spiritual … deeply ancestral”. She talks about her activism as things she’s “had to do”, because, for her, “activists are not birthed out of choice … [but] … out of urgency … out of care … out of obligation”.

She wants to speak for her country and advocate for the youth. Refugees, she points out, do not need to be saved. Indeed, “sometimes they just need people to get the hell out of their way so they can rebuild countries that were taken from them”. She ends on this:

I am here for every Black girl who does not get to dream out loud. I have to stay in the room so that, when they step through the door, there is another Black face waiting for them.

That of course is the critical thing – for there to be role models, for us all to see people like us on the stage, in print, on TV, in art, and so on.

She will perform at Australia for UNHCR’s World Refugee Day lunch, Sydney, Thursday 19 June 2025. Click here for more info.

In the meantime, here she is on a UNHCR-published YouTube – and doing a TedX talk/improvisation a few months ago:

Art has been my greatest gift.
It is my greatest privilege.
It is my greatest weapon.

Have you either heard, or heard of, Huda the Goddess?

PS Oops, this is late. I scheduled it and then forgot to press the green button!