This is an ‘unauthorised’ biography, but it mostly reads as spin. Twenty pages in, there is a rare hint of unauthorised criticism: ‘Delta often talks in clichés but she truly believes in these sentiments.’ Presumably, the same could be said for Davies. Or does she not really believe in clichés, while understanding that her readers do? Davies is a senior editor at New Idea, and Delta is journalistic writing, for a magazine audience.

I have often wondered about the lurid world of gossip mags: where do all those stories come from? They form an ongoing soap opera, with weekly appearances by an all-star cast: Jen and Brad, ‘our Nic’, the couple formerly known as Bennifer. Is there a cluster of hacks somewhere, with storyboards, frantically manufacturing this stuff? There is a strange correspondence between these magazines: they seem to have little to do with the truth, but every-thing to do with each other. Davies’s challenge in Delta lies in expanding the exclusive feature into a full-length biography. She resourcefully adds to the word count by quoting all the resident experts of magazine-land: ‘friends’, psychologists, and New Idea’s astrologer, Karen Moregold, who reveals that Delta ‘has an extremely artistic and sensitive nature’.

Delta’s story would seem to have been written for gossip magazines, and needs little embellishment. A beautiful girl is signed by Sony at a young age, and becomes a soap opera star on Neighbours. Her album Innocent Eyes is a phenomenal success, then she is struck down with Hodgkin’s disease. While recovering from chemotherapy, she falls in love with Mark Philippoussis. The tennis star leaves her for Paris Hilton – of all people, of all symbols. Paris describes Delta as ‘boring’.

Which brings us to the crux of Davies’ book: is Delta boring? Delta herself weighs in for the affirmative: ‘I’m boring. I don’t do cigarettes or drugs.’ Her public persona is a little daffy, a little cute. Davies writes that:

The most famous teenager in Australia also collects fairies, brought her teddy bears to Melbourne, and still wants to believe in Santa … Delta giggled when she confessed to an interviewer that her favourite joke was ‘Why did the chicken cross the road?’

Perhaps when your life goes public on that scale, you need all the teddy bears you can cling to, as ballast. But, of course, teddy bears are not the whole story. Inevitably, as Delta’s career progresses, the carnage begins. Davies is evasive on the subject of Delta’s falling-out with manager Glenn Wheatley, but she announces that ‘it has become more and more apparent that people are either devoted to Delta or are trying to sue her’. (This is not the most useful position from which to write an unauthorised biography. Nor does either option hold much appeal for this reader.) Finally, Davies throws up her arms in exasperation: ‘Is not even Delta immune from betrayals, bitterness, cash-grabbing and legal fallouts?’ These are my italics, because I like Davies’s use of the word ‘even’. Similarly: ‘One columnist, Rex Jory, even said that he was “bored” with Delta.’ Rex Jory, thy name is mud. Which brings us back to our question: is Delta boring?

Perhaps she is, in Paris Hilton terms. Delta’s appeal is as asexual as Diana’s was, despite Sony’s early attempts to market her as a sex-nymph. These days, she is the anti-Holly Valance: ‘You won’t catch me wearing hotpants!’ she chirps. But increasingly she tries to have it both ways. She has launched her own underwear line, stating that ‘when you have a great bra and undies underneath, it just gives you that take-off-your-clothes feeling, not that I do that’.

More telling is the music, which is missing in a book that traffics in gossip and spin. Eleven-year-olds revere Delta, because her music doesn’t patronise them. She writes songs of experience – even if she calls her album Innocent Eyes. Her music appeals to children at an age when they can see most clearly: after they’re done with the Wiggles, but before their appreciation of beauty is crowded out by anger or by sex. Her ballads are limited by their genre, but at their best there is a rightness and an inexorability to them, and they speak to the great melancholy of childhood. Not me, not I resonates around the supermarket when I do my shopping and makes choosing a washing detergent both plaintive and beautiful. This has nothing to do with teddy bears, which are surely a ruse to placate the parents. Delta may be boring, but Delta is not.