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Absolutely Revolting

October 1994, no. 165

Welcome to the October 1994 issue of Australian Book Review.

Cathrine Harboe-Ree reviews The Hand That Signed the Paper by Helen Demidenko
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Whether you track backwards in time from the hidden pestilence that is Chernobyl, or forwards from the vengeful terror of Stalin’s collectivisation and anti-nationalist policies, it is an inescapable fact that the Ukraine has had a bloody and awful century. In the winter of 1932-33 alone some four to five million Ukrainians died in ...
Book 1 Title: The Hand That Signed the Paper
Book Author: Helen Demidenko
Book 1 Biblio: Allen & Unwin, $13.95 pb, 1863736549
Book 1 Author Type: Author
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Whether you track backwards in time from the hidden pestilence that is Chernobyl, or forwards from the vengeful terror of Stalin’s collectivisation and anti-nationalist policies, it is an inescapable fact that the Ukraine has had a bloody and awful century. In the winter of 1932-33 alone some four to five million Ukrainians died in the famine caused by Stalin’s brutal agricultural ‘reforms’.

A brief flowering of Ukrainian national culture in the 1920s paralleled a period of Jewish freedom following the Bolshevik revolution, with terrible consequences; the pre-revolution anti-Semitism of the Ukraine found new vigour in the 1930s, as the bitterness caused by Stalin’s policies was focused by the Ukrainians on the Jewish Bolsheviks who held positions of authority in the new regime. It is not surprising that Hitler’s invading armies were at first welcomed by Ukrainians as liberators, and Nazi anti-Semitism found many sympathisers in this brutalised nation.

Some fifty years later the ugly history of the Second World War in the Ukraine became the stuff of daily news presented to a largely bemused Australia, when several old men of Ukrainian descent were charged here with war crimes, and one case in particular – that of Ivan Polyukhovich – was brought to trial in Adelaide.

Helen Demidenko has written The Hand That Signed the Paper as a fictionalised account of the life of a Ukrainian man thus charged. The book is written from the point of view of the man’s niece, who interviews family members and records their view of the events that took place. We are, then, as readers, given the opportunity to act as the jury for a case that is ultimately not brought to trial, because of the poor health of the defendant.

Read more: Cathrine Harboe-Ree reviews 'The Hand That Signed the Paper' by Helen Demidenko

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Kevin Brophy reviews Wishbone by Marion Halligan
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These are the opening lines of Wishbone. Already I know that this is a book I want to continue reading, and not just for the promise of sex, romance, and intrigue. I am also attracted by the ‘difficulty’ of knowing just what tone is being taken here, and just who is speaking to me in these words. As well as being thrown immediately into the story, the reader is confronted with this tone – analytic, cool, amused? There is the holding-back of both information and conclusions. There is the emphasis on bodies, their awkwardness, the space they take up, their economics … and later the words and wishes they produce. Knight will say to his lover, Emmanuelle, ‘I thought we could have an affair and just be bodies.’
Book 1 Title: Wishbone
Book Author: Marion Halligan
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The difficulty of a love affair between a young woman and a married man may be its logistics. Where can they go?

These are the opening lines of Wishbone. Already I know that this is a book I want to continue reading, and not just for the promise of sex, romance, and intrigue. I am also attracted by the ‘difficulty’ of knowing just what tone is being taken here, and just who is speaking to me in these words. As well as being thrown immediately into the story, the reader is confronted with this tone – analytic, cool, amused? There is the holding-back of both information and conclusions. There is the emphasis on bodies, their awkwardness, the space they take up, their economics … and later the words and wishes they produce. Knight will say to his lover, Emmanuelle, ‘I thought we could have an affair and just be bodies.’

This is the kind of book you might wish for when you want to be taken out of yourself for a while, in unexpected ways.

Read more: Kevin Brophy reviews 'Wishbone' by Marion Halligan

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Bronte Adams reviews Volatile Bodies: Towards a corporeal feminism by Elizabeth Grosz
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Volatile Bodies is an important book: its challenge is nothing less than the development of a non-essentialist, feminist philosophy of the body.
Book 1 Title: Volatile Bodies
Book 1 Subtitle: Towards a corporeal feminism
Book Author: Elizabeth Grosz
Book 1 Biblio: Allen & Unwin, $24.95
Book 1 Readings Link: https://booktopia.kh4ffx.net/DV0LYn
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Volatile Bodies is an important book: its challenge is nothing less than the development of a non-essentialist, feminist philosophy of the body.

In providing an epistemological base and theoretical start to the project, Grosz is moving beyond her previous focus of explicating Continental theorists and making their work accessible to a larger audience. While the bulk of Volatile Bodies still explicates the work of mainly French theorists, its originality lies in the framework Grosz lays out to select and draw from her readings.

Read more: Bronte Adams reviews 'Volatile Bodies: Towards a corporeal feminism' by Elizabeth Grosz

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Jenny Digby reviews The Monkey’s Mask by Dorothy Porter
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Dorothy Porter has been called an audacious poet. She has been called a sexy read. Doug Anderson described her as ‘One of our most exuberant and perceptive purveyors of passion.’ With the publication of her latest book, The Monkey’s Mask, Porter’s reputation stands firm.
Book 1 Title: The Monkey’s Mask
Book Author: Dorothy Porter
Book 1 Biblio: Hyland House S19.95pb
Book 1 Readings Link: booktopia.kh4ffx.net/0JQYgV
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Dorothy Porter has been called an audacious poet. She has been called a sexy read. Doug Anderson described her as ‘One of our most exuberant and perceptive purveyors of passion.’ With the publication of her latest book, The Monkey’s Mask, Porter’s reputation stands firm.

The Monkey’s Mask is a lesbian crime thriller. There’s nothing new or bold about that. Women writers have been infiltrating and subverting this traditionally masculine genre for many years now and lesbian P.I.s are pretty thick on the ground (‘The dicks are dykes’ as someone once said) but the indefatigable Porter has created yet another form – a lesbian crime thriller written completely in verse. And that’s not all that’s ground-breaking about this book. It is being marketed as fiction.

Read more: Jenny Digby reviews 'The Monkey’s Mask' by Dorothy Porter

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Michael McGirr reviews This Is For You by Michael Wilding
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Contents Category: Short Stories
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These twenty-one stories have a pedigree; according to the customary list of acknowledgments, they have had a previous life littered across no fewer than twenty-six books, magazines, and journals, some of whose names are unfamiliar even to my local newsagent. I’m not sure these days if places of publication should properly be called ‘sites’, ‘topoi’, or ‘venues’. Such is the prevalence of dope in this book, however, that perhaps they could be called ‘joints’. But This Is For You is certainly greater than the sum of its parts.
Book 1 Title: This Is For You
Book Author: Michael Wilding
Book 1 Biblio: A&R, $16.95 pb
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These twenty-one stories have a pedigree; according to the customary list of acknowledgments, they have had a previous life littered across no fewer than twenty-six books, magazines, and journals, some of whose names are unfamiliar even to my local newsagent. I’m not sure these days if places of publication should properly be called ‘sites’, ‘topoi’, or ‘venues’. Such is the prevalence of dope in this book, however, that perhaps they could be called ‘joints’. But This Is For You is certainly greater than the sum of its parts.

This is not to disparage the parts. Wilding has enough wit to make an occasion of two or three pages. A story such as ‘Smoke-oh’ brings together the likes of a publisher, cab-driver, and public servant and lets them beguile each other for as long as it takes them to smoke a couple of joints.

Read more: Michael McGirr reviews 'This Is For You' by Michael Wilding

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Noni Durack reviews Travellers in a Landscape: Visitors’ impressions of the Darling Downs 1827–1954 by Maurice French
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This is Maurice French’s sixth work on the Darling Downs. An Associate Professor of History and Dean of the Faculty of Arts at the University of Southern Queensland, he is ideally placed to study this fertile plateau in south-east Queensland, reputedly the richest agricultural land in Australia.
Book 1 Title: Travellers in a Landscape
Book 1 Subtitle: Visitors’ impressions of the Darling Downs 1827–1954
Book Author: Maurice French
Book 1 Biblio: USQ Press, $ 44.95 hb
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This is Maurice French’s sixth work on the Darling Downs. An Associate Professor of History and Dean of the Faculty of Arts at the University of Southern Queensland, he is ideally placed to study this fertile plateau in south-east Queensland, reputedly the richest agricultural land in Australia.

The author’s long preface is a dissertation upon travel and travellers. Eventually, he suggests that these tales from diverse visitors, many who later became settlers, will provide another image of the Downs to augment the popular one painted by Steele Rudd. One suspects, however, that French, having focussed for so long on this area and having an almost mystical appreciation of its beauty, will not let the subject go.

Read more: Noni Durack reviews 'Travellers in a Landscape: Visitors’ impressions of the Darling Downs...

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Julie Lewis reviews Out in the Open: An autobiography by Geoffrey Dutton
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Literary biographies are reputedly more widely read than their subjects’ own works: more people have probably read David Marr’s biography of Patrick White than have tackled The Twyborn Affair or The Aunt’s Story. The same may perhaps can be said for autobiography, and it’s my bet that Geoffrey Dutton’s Out in the Open will attract more attention than, say, his novel, Andy (Flying Low), his collections of poetry, or even his impressive biography of Edward John Eyre.
Book 1 Title: Out in the Open
Book 1 Subtitle: An autobiography
Book Author: Geoffrey Dutton
Book 1 Biblio: UQP, S39.95 hb
Book 1 Author Type: Author
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Literary biographies are reputedly more widely read than their subjects’ own works: more people have probably read David Marr’s biography of Patrick White than have tackled The Twyborn Affair or The Aunt’s Story. The same may perhaps can be said for autobiography, and it’s my bet that Geoffrey Dutton’s Out in the Open will attract more attention than, say, his novel, Andy (Flying Low), his collections of poetry, or even his impressive biography of Edward John Eyre.

What is it about writers’ lives that is so fascinating? The glimpse they give of the person behind the persona? The chance they give for vicarious adventure or illicit love affair? Another form of voyeurism? Or is it simply that the personal narrative is more accessible, an easier read?

Read more: Julie Lewis reviews 'Out in the Open: An autobiography' by Geoffrey Dutton

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Peter Fitzpatrick reviews Collected Plays, Volume II by Patrick White and Collected Plays, Volume II by David Williamson
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In a recent interview on ABC radio, the playwright, Stephen Sewell, deplored the lack of revivals of notable Australian plays. Now and then, one of the pioneer playwrights from the first half of the century is honoured briefly in this way, but it is much rarer to find one of the professional companies revisiting the major works of the last twenty-five years. As Sewell implied, this reflects the lack of a strong sense of a tradition of ‘modem classics’ in our theatre.
Book 1 Title: Collected Plays, Volume II
Book Author: Patrick White
Book 1 Biblio: Currency Press, 0-86819-305-4
Book 2 Title: Collected Plays, Volume II
Book 2 Author: David Williamson
Book 2 Biblio: Currency Press, 0-86819-287-2
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In a recent interview on ABC radio, the playwright, Stephen Sewell, deplored the lack of revivals of notable Australian plays. Now and then, one of the pioneer playwrights from the first half of the century is honoured briefly in this way, but it is much rarer to find one of the professional companies revisiting the major works of the last twenty-five years. As Sewell implied, this reflects the lack of a strong sense of a tradition of ‘modem classics’ in our theatre.

There are some obvious reasons for this: our leading companies, to the degree that each recognises an obligation to perform Australian work, tend understandably to give priority to new writing. Currency Press, throughout those twenty-five years in which a national repertoire has become an established part of the theatrical scene, has boldly and faithfully preserved the texts of most of these new Australian plays. That commitment to new work is a splendid principle, as it applies both to performance and publication, but it does tend to enshrine the text at its first-production stage.

The shortage of revivals, and the relative shortage of revised texts, has limited the opportunity for playwrights and performers to benefit from the learning experiences of those initial seasons.

Read more: Peter Fitzpatrick reviews 'Collected Plays, Volume II' by Patrick White and 'Collected Plays,...

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Nancy Phelan reviews The Rose Crossing by Nicholas Jose
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Occasionally after you have read a book that pleased, baffled, irritated, or bored you, someone points out all the subtleties, virtues, and faults you have missed. This could perhaps happen to readers of The Rose Crossing.

We know from Anna Russell that in opera it doesn’t matter what the characters do so long as they sing it; the same could be said of novels, providing the author can convince us. On the surface The Rose Crossing is a tall story set in the seventeenth century, in which, as in a fairy tale, people you don’t believe in behave in an unreal way and get into preposterous situations. They make stagy ‘period’ speeches, they don’t engage our sympathies, they sometimes creak when they move.
Book 1 Title: The Rose Crossing
Book Author: Nicholas Jose
Book 1 Biblio: Hamish Hamilton, $l9.95 pb
Book 1 Author Type: Author
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Occasionally after you have read a book that pleased, baffled, irritated, or bored you, someone points out all the subtleties, virtues, and faults you have missed. This could perhaps happen to readers of The Rose Crossing.

We know from Anna Russell that in opera it doesn’t matter what the characters do so long as they sing it; the same could be said of novels, providing the author can convince us. On the surface The Rose Crossing is a tall story set in the seventeenth century, in which, as in a fairy tale, people you don’t believe in behave in an unreal way and get into preposterous situations. They make stagy ‘period’ speeches, they don’t engage our sympathies, they sometimes creak when they move.

Read more: Nancy Phelan reviews 'The Rose Crossing' by Nicholas Jose

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Contents Category: Commentary
Custom Article Title: The Rock and the Proulx
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Article Title: The Rock and the Proulx
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When I discovered that a novel set in my native Newfoundland had won the 1993 Irish Times International Fiction Prize, I was a little surprised. Newfoundland, isolated and little known outside Canada, seemed an unlikely setting for an acclaimed novel.
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When I discovered that a novel set in my native Newfoundland had won the 1993 Irish Times International Fiction Prize, I was a little surprised. Newfoundland, isolated and little known outside Canada, seemed an unlikely setting for an acclaimed novel.

The Shipping News, by American writer E. Annie Proulx, has since won other awards and become an inter­national best-seller, its theme of redemption in a harsh environment striking a chord in many readers. To me, as an expatriate Newfoundlander, the novel works a deep magic. Proulx’s Newfoundland villages are imaginary, but she captures the essence of a very real place and people.

Read more: 'The Rock and the Proulx' by Gary Osmond

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Teresa Savage reviews Suck My Toes by Fiona McGregor
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Sometimes I long for beauty – in a book I want beautiful writing and even some beauty illuminated in everyday experience. Fiona McGregor’s short story collection does little to ease my longing.
Book 1 Title: Suck My Toes
Book Author: Fiona McGregor
Book 1 Biblio: McPhee Gribble, $14.95 pb
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Sometimes I long for beauty – in a book I want beautiful writing and even some beauty illuminated in everyday experience. Fiona McGregor’s short story collection does little to ease my longing.

Firstly, it throws up what I see as a common underlying problem in lesbian writing. In our hunger for recognition, we give our writing justification by asserting that we are filling the gap; that we are addressing the continuing under-representation of lesbian reality in contemporary mainstream Australian literature. And this self-righteousness frequently masks a sloppiness, a lack of attention to detail, an unwillingness to push the medium further, to strain the writing, to make it thrilling.

Read more: Teresa Savage reviews 'Suck My Toes' by Fiona McGregor

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Rosemary Sorensen reviews The Name of the Mother: Writing illegitimacy by Marie Maclean
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For some time now literary criticism has been fascinated by the role of naming, and the inscription of the name, in relation to the identity of the self. There are rich pickings to be had from examining autobiography for the way the writer reveals and hides behind the words with which a life is described. And in this era of autobiographical and biographical tumescence, it is most important that the analysis of such writing is done by those with the ability to do so. Think of the recent debates over biographies and autobiographies in Australia and you will quickly recognise how unsophisticated is our general understanding of what is going on when a life is inscribed, and yet how different the living is from the writing.
Book 1 Title: The Name of the Mother
Book 1 Subtitle: Writing illegitimacy
Book Author: Marie Maclean
Book 1 Biblio: Routledge, $120 hb
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For some time now literary criticism has been fascinated by the role of naming, and the inscription of the name, in relation to the identity of the self. There are rich pickings to be had from examining autobiography for the way the writer reveals and hides behind the words with which a life is described. And in this era of autobiographical and biographical tumescence, it is most important that the analysis of such writing is done by those with the ability to do so. Think of the recent debates over biographies and autobiographies in Australia and you will quickly recognise how unsophisticated is our general understanding of what is going on when a life is inscribed, and yet how different the living is from the writing.

Read more: Rosemary Sorensen reviews 'The Name of the Mother: Writing illegitimacy' by Marie Maclean

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On a current affairs segment devoted to the events in Rwanda an Israeli doctor spoke with a great sense of purpose about the work he wad doing to save lives, especially those of Rwandan children. I feel so proud to be here, he told the interviewer, pointing out how the water he was providing to the patients could make all the difference between life and death. There was no denying his commitment, but there was something in his answers which subtly conflicted with his humanitarianism. Another interview followed with an African woman, an army nurse, who was forced to attend to the Rwandan refugees by virtue of her employment. When asked how she felt about the situation, she replied, with admirable precision, that it was horrible. This response clearly perplexed the interviewer. Of course, the crisis itself was ‘horrible’, but surely her role in it partook of the heroic. He tried again: Yes, but how do you feel? A long pause, and then her angry reply: I don’t want to talk about my personal feelings.
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On a current affairs segment devoted to the events in Rwanda an Israeli doctor spoke with a great sense of purpose about the work he wad doing to save lives, especially those of Rwandan children. I feel so proud to be here, he told the interviewer, pointing out how the water he was providing to the patients could make all the difference between life and death. There was no denying his commitment, but there was something in his answers which subtly conflicted with his humanitarianism. Another interview followed with an African woman, an army nurse, who was forced to attend to the Rwandan refugees by virtue of her employment. When asked how she felt about the situation, she replied, with admirable precision, that it was horrible. This response clearly perplexed the interviewer. Of course, the crisis itself was ‘horrible’, but surely her role in it partook of the heroic. He tried again: Yes, but how do you feel? A long pause, and then her angry reply: I don’t want to talk about my personal feelings.

Read more: 'Rwandalust' by T.V. Weekes

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David Gilbey reviews Masculinities and Identities by David Buchbinder
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Running hot on the national Austlit Discussion Group email waves recently was the question of speaking position and voice for men in contemporary critical discourse. What had occasioned the discussion was ASAL’s annual conference in Canberra, part of which had been a very successful morning at the Australian War Memorial focussing on writing and war (e.g. Alan Gould and Don Charlwood).
Book 1 Title: Masculinities and Identities
Book Author: David Buchbinder
Book 1 Biblio: MUP, $19.95 pb
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Running hot on the national Austlit Discussion Group email waves recently was the question of speaking position and voice for men in contemporary critical discourse. What had occasioned the discussion was ASAL’s annual conference in Canberra, part of which had been a very successful morning at the Australian War Memorial focussing on writing and war (e.g. Alan Gould and Don Charlwood).

On the computer airwaves, women (e.g. Kerryn Goldsworthy and Cath Ellis) voiced their sense of repugnance for and distance from the ways Australian identity is often construed in terms of male heroics (e.g. the bushman/ANZAC). What was especially interesting and timely for me was that some of the men (e.g. Chris Lee and Dennis Haskell) also expressed their sense of being marginalised by the predominantly male nationalist discourses of, for example, the ANZAC ‘legend’.

Read more: David Gilbey reviews 'Masculinities and Identities' by David Buchbinder

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Long live who?
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Long live who?

 

I hate the bastards. Tongues like extensile lassos roping in other ning­nongs to maintain the status flow. Their greasy machinations ensure they continue to exist comfortably on the downswing, happy viruses constantly in take-over mode.

 

God stuff me but they're a punnet of pussy-footers. They belong in the Athenaeum set aside for defaulting bookies' pencillers and the receptionists of shonky pox-doctors.

 

You should see them with a new idea, putting it on over their moot­minds like a well-worn Wellington boot, fitting nowhere. Worse than politicians and their wegotism.

 

It was easy to decide and with even a rapture of sorts to cordially and comprehensively hate them: they give me the complexschists.

 

May they embark on long sentences, dressed in an outworn haute couture of the mind, that founder and sink with all hands. If they knew what they were talking about, it would be different, but they've never put together two thoughts worth a shpit; their ploys creak; they're out of their psychotrees. They are as significant as the preaching mantis. I wish on them the sudden defenestration associated with their bumpf and bumfodder brawls on paper and in the corridors of the selected ear.

 

May they jog, and enjoy the red hot sweatband of manganese steel I have imagined tightening round their tiny brows; first the diesel headache, then the scrimjing, screaming bones of the skull breaking inwards. I could smash them, puree them in their own juices.

 

Such violence in me. I think of Damascus steel, of samurai blades, and could cut and throw them away. Then walk back to fix their heads over their own doorways.

 

God, they're only particles; why do they enrage me? They fall, daily deciduous-they are so many-like dandruff to the floor their feet foul.

 

Not so much hating their bodies as their faces.

 

Faces grin, they smile and deceive, they patronise like pompous bellies prodding you backwards.

 

Faces contain wheels, turbines passively waiting for that boot of power to drive their deals, their eager franchisers of the efforts of others.

 

Faces should suffer for the evil deeds of the weasels who hide behind them.

 

Come the psychorevolution, let's kill all the false faces. Join with me, you others to whom the invisible speaks, who yearn for honesty and directness, you who with me love humble rocks and breathing plants, every serviceable object, and the great sea-billows of land we name hills; you for whom life is stronger than death.

 

But Jesus mother of God, sister of Oedipussy, after all I've done for them: not a word. Of thanks.

 

God gobble this bunch of suckwits – all but the brains, which carry disease – and when you've spat out their gristly bits and vomited their vile effluents, leave the brains by the wayside with scarlet signs digging deep into their grey and secret passages, notifying others who've lost their way that this is what happens. I say to them all, simply, calmly and quietly: Stick it.

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John Hanrahan reviews Moments of Pleasure by Julian Davies
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Beatrice Wood, banished by those around her to ‘the category of the aged’, is both the focus and the strength of Julian Davies’s third novel, Moments of Pleasure. Choosing to live her life as a single woman, she has been the unforgiven Magdalene of her family because for fifty years she has been the lover of Mark, a man twice married. A dapper moustache of a man, Mark drifts in and out of both Bea’s life and the novel.
Book 1 Title: Moments of Pleasure
Book Author: Julian Davies
Book 1 Biblio: Penguin, $16.95 pb
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Beatrice Wood, banished by those around her to ‘the category of the aged’, is both the focus and the strength of Julian Davies’s third novel, Moments of Pleasure. Choosing to live her life as a single woman, she has been the unforgiven Magdalene of her family because for fifty years she has been the lover of Mark, a man twice married. A dapper moustache of a man, Mark drifts in and out of both Bea’s life and the novel.

While Bea lives by her own decisions that are a mystery to some of those around her, she also clings to the values that formed her in the era before 1929. Though the servants were dismissed, Bea did not say goodbye to her belief in courtesy, privacy, manners, good books and fine underwear.

Read more: John Hanrahan reviews 'Moments of Pleasure' by Julian Davies

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Winifred Belmont reviews Night by Night by Jane Messer
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This is the first novel for Jane Messer who, we are told, is writing a second book as part of a Doctorate of Creative Arts ­– and, I must admit, that put me off a bit. Not that I think writers should be uneducated, but academic qualifications in ‘creative writing’ are still a bit suss as far as I’m concerned. I don’t like the thought that I’m reading someone’s term paper, or Master of Arts in Writing from John Hopkins University.  
Book 1 Title: Night by Night
Book Author: Jane Messer
Book 1 Biblio: McPhee Gribble, $14.95 pb
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This is the first novel for Jane Messer who, we are told, is writing a second book as part of a Doctorate of Creative Arts ­– and, I must admit, that put me off a bit. Not that I think writers should be uneducated, but academic qualifications in ‘creative writing’ are still a bit suss as far as I’m concerned. I don’t like the thought that I’m reading someone’s term paper, or Master of Arts in Writing from John Hopkins University.  

Read more: Winifred Belmont reviews 'Night by Night' by Jane Messer

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A bloke I know classifies all birds as either shitehawks or dickybirds. Who knows, perhaps he doesn’t believe it either. Problem is, the line keeps shifting. Too many birds just don’t fit these categories. Take the shearwater. It flies fifty thousand kilometres a year in an endless quest for summer. Small it may be, dickybird it ain’t.
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A bloke I know classifies all birds as either shitehawks or dickybirds. Who knows, perhaps he doesn’t believe it either. Problem is, the line keeps shifting. Too many birds just don’t fit these categories. Take the shearwater. It flies fifty thousand kilometres a year in an endless quest for summer. Small it may be, dickybird it ain’t.

Read more: 'Providers' by Colleen Isaac

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Kate Veitch reviews Ceremony at Lang Nho by Georgia Savage
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It would not be unreasonable, given the title and the cover (saffron-tinted, showing a vaguely Buddha-like image overlaid with helicopter gunships) to expect Ceremony at Lang Nho to be about Australia’s involvement in the Vietnam War. Well, we all know about judging books by their covers, don’t we? The image is no Buddha, but an elaborate twelfth-century European beehive, and the helicopter gunships are themselves overlaid by little golden bees. And the true battleground of this novel is not Vietnam but the family and the individual psyche.
Book 1 Title: Ceremony at Lang Nho
Book Author: Georgia Savage
Book 1 Biblio: McPhee Gribble, $14.95
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It would not be unreasonable, given the title and the cover (saffron-tinted, showing a vaguely Buddha-like image overlaid with helicopter gunships) to expect Ceremony at Lang Nho to be about Australia’s involvement in the Vietnam War. Well, we all know about judging books by their covers, don’t we? The image is no Buddha, but an elaborate twelfth-century European beehive, and the helicopter gunships are themselves overlaid by little golden bees. And the true battleground of this novel is not Vietnam but the family and the individual psyche.

The main character and narrator is Fiona, a photographer touching forty. You could say she is having a midlife crisis, I suppose, but that term is so often used pejoratively. Fiona has reached a point in her life where she can either stand still and let the rank thickets of her past grow ever denser, strangling her, or she can fight to clear a path, to find clear ground where she is able to grow, work, and love.

Read more: Kate Veitch reviews 'Ceremony at Lang Nho' by Georgia Savage

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Vashti Farrer reviews Australian Women: Contemporary feminist thought edited by Norma Grieve and Ailsa Burns
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Feminism is one of the great, enduring intellectual movements of the twentieth century. This collection of essays, mainly by academics, examines how that movement has advanced to date and where it appears to be headed.
Book 1 Title: Australian Women
Book 1 Subtitle: Contemporary feminist thought
Book Author: Norma Grieve and Ailsa Burns
Book 1 Biblio: OUP, $29.95 pb
Book 1 Author Type: Editor
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Feminism is one of the great, enduring intellectual movements of the twentieth century. This collection of essays, mainly by academics, examines how that movement has advanced to date and where it appears to be headed.

Australian women have been attending international conferences on feminism since the 1890s when their high international profile was at odds with their lack of parliamentary representation at home. Women in South Australia gained the vote in 1894, but it was 1943 before Enid Lyons was returned to Parliament. When, after the Second World War, British and American women were rewarded with the vote, Australian women were already enfranchised, so for them there was no reward.

Read more: Vashti Farrer reviews 'Australian Women: Contemporary feminist thought' edited by Norma Grieve and...

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The title of this book has a faint dash of Ouida, but actually it signifies not a dashing cavalry regiment but the officiers bleus of the French navy under the Ancien Regime, who were not of the nobility and so socially inferior to their aristocratic colleagues, though often (or usually) superior as seamen. Duyker has written a good businesslike account of a remarkable career. The book is very well presented, with genealogies, bibliography and glossary, many plates (some in colour), and above all plenty of maps. An appendix by Rex Nan Kivell recounts his rescue, in the confusion at Calais when the German’s were overrunning France in 1940, of the painting of Marion’s death. He rolled up the canvas and stuffed it down his trouser leg, doubtless walking rather stiffly. A wry footnote to history.
Book 1 Title: An Officer of the Blue
Book 1 Subtitle: Marc-Joseph Marion Dufresne: South Sea Explorer, 1724–1772
Book Author: Edward Duyker
Book 1 Biblio: MUP, $39.95
Book 1 Readings Link: booktopia.kh4ffx.net/3PjVPB
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The title of this book has a faint dash of Ouida, but actually it signifies not a dashing cavalry regiment but the officiers bleus of the French navy under the Ancien Regime, who were not of the nobility and so socially inferior to their aristocratic colleagues, though often (or usually) superior as seamen. Duyker has written a good businesslike account of a remarkable career. The book is very well presented, with genealogies, bibliography and glossary, many plates (some in colour), and above all plenty of maps. An appendix by Rex Nan Kivell recounts his rescue, in the confusion at Calais when the German’s were overrunning France in 1940, of the painting of Marion’s death. He rolled up the canvas and stuffed it down his trouser leg, doubtless walking rather stiffly. A wry footnote to history.

Read more: Oscar Spate reviews 'An Officer of the Blue: Marc-Joseph Marion Dufresne: South Sea Explorer,...

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Helen Elliott reviews A Wish of Distinction: Colonial gentility and femininity by Penny Russell
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Penny Russell could not have chanced upon a better phrase than Jane Austen’s ‘It was rather a wish of distinction … It was the desire of appearing superior to other people’ when she was seeking a title for this book. The colonial gentility of Melbourne, or ‘Society’ if you want to use their understanding of who they were, could only define themselves in terms of who they were not – or who they would never wish to be.
Book 1 Title: A Wish of Distinction
Book 1 Subtitle: Colonial gentility and femininity
Book Author: Penny Russell
Book 1 Biblio: MUP, S24.95 pb
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Penny Russell could not have chanced upon a better phrase than Jane Austen’s ‘It was rather a wish of distinction … It was the desire of appearing superior to other people’ when she was seeking a title for this book. The colonial gentility of Melbourne, or ‘Society’ if you want to use their understanding of who they were, could only define themselves in terms of who they were not – or who they would never wish to be.

Who they were not, though, as Russell points out, was a very fluid thing. As in every other class-conscious but aristocracy-bereft society, it was, ultimately, money that engendered ‘superiority’. No matter how hard those already there tried to keep it out, the next generation would always be through the door, looking forward to shutting it in someone else’s face.

Read more: Helen Elliott reviews 'A Wish of Distinction: Colonial gentility and femininity' by Penny Russell

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Peter Schneider, who was born in Lubeck but grew up in Freiburg, studied philosophy, history and German literature at the universities of Freiburg, Munich and then West Berlin, where he has lived since the early 1960s. The immediate attraction of Berlin was that it enabled him to avoid military service but in the course of the 1960s Berlin became the centre of student activism. In 1965 he worked as a speech writer for the Social Democrats’ election campaign and in 1967 played a prominent role in the campaign against the right-wing news­papers of the Springer Press. From 1967 to 1971 Schneider was active as an organiser and speaker in the student movement in Berlin and then in Italy.
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Peter Schneider, who was born in Lubeck but grew up in Freiburg, studied philosophy, history and German literature at the universities of Freiburg, Munich and then West Berlin, where he has lived since the early 1960s. The immediate attraction of Berlin was that it enabled him to avoid military service but in the course of the 1960s Berlin became the centre of student activism. In 1965 he worked as a speech writer for the Social Democrats’ election campaign and in 1967 played a prominent role in the campaign against the right-wing news­papers of the Springer Press. From 1967 to 1971 Schneider was active as an organiser and speaker in the student movement in Berlin and then in Italy.

Read more: 'Peter Schneider' by David Roberts

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For Englishman Michael Dibdin, the road to success in crime fiction has been long, frustrating, and somewhat circuitous. After studying English at Sussex University, he went to Canada to do his PhD, dropped out, hit the hippie trail in the 1970s, then founded a business that went bust. In amongst that, his marriage went down the gurgler too. In short he had seen and experienced a great deal without making a fist of anything.
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For Englishman Michael Dibdin, the road to success in crime fiction has been long, frustrating, and somewhat circuitous. After studying English at Sussex University, he went to Canada to do his PhD, dropped out, hit the hippie trail in the 1970s, then founded a business that went bust. In amongst that, his marriage went down the gurgler too. In short he had seen and experienced a great deal without making a fist of anything.

Read more: 'Guilt Edge' by J.R. Carroll

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Article Title: From the Word Go
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‘Years ago we threw the old didacticism (dowdy morality) out of the window; it has come back in at the door wearing modern dress (smart values) and we do not even recognise it.’ John Rowe Townsend’s words, from more than a quarter of a century ago, retain a fresh ring of truthfulness. I recalled them after reading The Girl with No Name (Puffin, $8.95 pb), Pat Lowe’s first novel for children.
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‘Years ago we threw the old didacticism (dowdy morality) out of the window; it has come back in at the door wearing modern dress (smart values) and we do not even recognise it.’ John Rowe Townsend’s words, from more than a quarter of a century ago, retain a fresh ring of truthfulness. I recalled them after reading The Girl with No Name (Puffin, $8.95 pb), Pat Lowe’s first novel for children.

The story, about a white boy’s encounter with an Aboriginal girl, is clad in such confident ‘modern dress’ that its didacticism may well escape the notice of adults whose interest is in keeping pace with fashion. Alert children of independent thought, however, may resent its underlying self-righteousness and be unimpressed by its ‘superior adult’ tone. There is indeed an enormous gulf of understanding between white and black Australians and books can help bridge it. To succeed, however, they need to be sufficiently subtly composed to convey their purpose without sledge-hammered interpolations designed to ensure that readers won’t escape reaching the intended conclusions.

Read more: Stephen Matthews reviews 'The Girl with No Name' by Pat Lowe, 'This Summer Last' by Lee-Anne Levy,...

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I don’t suppose Rosemary Sorensen could have continued forever at ABR’s desk. All the same, I believe she has manoeuvred the journal into a liveliness other magazines lacked. It’s a cheerful thing to see the ABR flourishing, its covers in the public face in newsagents about the country: something that few other literary review journals have managed to do, outside their city of origin. Try, for example, to get a copy of Southerly, Westerly, Northern Perspective, Island, LiNQ or Imago across the counter anywhere outside their states of origin.
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I don’t suppose Rosemary Sorensen could have continued forever at ABR’s desk. All the same, I believe she has manoeuvred the journal into a liveliness other magazines lacked. It’s a cheerful thing to see the ABR flourishing, its covers in the public face in newsagents about the country: something that few other literary review journals have managed to do, outside their city of origin. Try, for example, to get a copy of Southerly, Westerly, Northern Perspective, Island, LiNQ or Imago across the counter anywhere outside their states of origin.

The unavailability (an entirely different matter from the existence) of such journals is a worry, for lots of reasons. One of these comes poignantly home to me in my role as rueful chairperthing of the New England Writers’ Centre. In its first year of operation the Centre has sought to do what other writers’ centres do – extend seminars, readings, workshops, and consultancies across a geographical area about the size of Tasmania. The nearest comparable opera­tor in this respect is Wagga Wagga.

Read more: Column by Michael Sharkey

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In his latest novel, Moments of Pleasure, Julian Davies continues his exploration of father and son relationships, and of the role of desire in women’s lives. He talks here about his interest in contemporary manners, beginning by answering the question, why so much talk and so little pleasure?
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In his latest novel, Moments of Pleasure, Julian Davies continues his exploration of father and son relationships, and of the role of desire in women’s lives. He talks here about his interest in contemporary manners, beginning by answering the question, why so much talk and so little pleasure?

There are a number of reasons. The book formed around Bea’s story where a woman falls in love with a man in her late twenties and maintains a relationship for sixty years even though he subsequently marries twice and comes and goes at his own whim. That was based on the story of a friend who is now dead.

Read more: An interview with Julian Davies

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You, certainly, understand what it’s like when you know for sure, and in your heart of hearts, that there is something rotten in the State of Denmark, but every time you put up your hand to point to the rottenness it is ignored, slapped down, or obfuscated. Lying, back-stabbing, shoving one’s own snout in the trough ahead of the mob, manoeuvring to get ahead, and destroying anything that might get in the way of a march towards the one goal of MONEY – no worries. All’s fair in war and publishing. But think about the larger picture, imagine a better way, work slowly and cautiously towards change? Get with it, baby, you’ve got to be kidding, that’s just feel-good stuff, forget it.
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You, certainly, understand what it’s like when you know for sure, and in your heart of hearts, that there is something rotten in the State of Denmark, but every time you put up your hand to point to the rottenness it is ignored, slapped down, or obfuscated. Lying, back-stabbing, shoving one’s own snout in the trough ahead of the mob, manoeuvring to get ahead, and destroying anything that might get in the way of a march towards the one goal of MONEY – no worries. All’s fair in war and publishing. But think about the larger picture, imagine a better way, work slowly and cautiously towards change? Get with it, baby, you’ve got to be kidding, that’s just feel-good stuff, forget it.

But you, certainly, you who read and love books, who take the time to contemplate something beyond the auto-teller and real-estate prices, you will share with me an uneasiness about the current state of publishing. When the publisher of an imprint such as Harvill can report that the director of his parent company, Harper Collins, ‘has come to feel that there simply is no room in a huge mainstream publishing corporation for the stylish, original, intellectually demanding books that Harvill chooses’, my hand rises in startled reaction, I’m afraid, before it falls back to my mouth which is gaping in horror.

Read more: 'Editorial' by Rosemary Sorensen

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Contents Category: Short Story
Custom Article Title: A Shoelace Snaps
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Article Title: A Shoelace Snaps
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Speeding on the freeway, adrift in possibility, in pursuit of dreams, Bilson, the bookman, collections inspected, autographs and associated ephemera, catalogues, modern firsts, blinks to some sort of blockage suddenly dead ahead and stomping the brake feels that shoelace snapping on that shoe suddenly loose on that foot as simultaneously an exit presents to the left which faster than thinking he takes, slewing and slowing, that rushing madhouse quit.
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Speeding on the freeway, adrift in possibility, in pursuit of dreams, Bilson, the bookman, collections inspected, autographs and associated ephemera, catalogues, modern firsts, blinks to some sort of blockage suddenly dead ahead and stomping the brake feels that shoelace snapping on that shoe suddenly loose on that foot as simultaneously an exit presents to the left which faster than thinking he takes, slewing and slowing, that rushing madhouse quit.

As you’ve guessed, of course.

That he’s dead, of course.

Read more: 'A Shoelace Snaps' by Morris Lurie

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Custom Article Title: A foot in the Chinese door
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Article Title: A foot in the Chinese door
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Those fortunate enough to hear Professor Liu Haiping speak on ‘Universities in a Changing China’ in Melbourne last month were given much food for thought. As Dean of the School of Foreign Studies at Nanjing University he has been at the centre of a period of rapid change in Chinese higher education.
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Those fortunate enough to hear Professor Liu Haiping speak on ‘Universities in a Changing China’ in Melbourne last month were given much food for thought. As Dean of the School of Foreign Studies at Nanjing University he has been at the centre of a period of rapid change in Chinese higher education.

His audience was rather taken aback by some uncanny similarities between their system and ours. Certainly, the language of reform was based upon some familiar rhetoric about competitiveness and the need to find more and ever larger sources of external funding. Nanjing saw an opportunity to raise funds by pulling down the walls surrounding the University and turning buildings into offices for rent. It runs some restaurants and, what one assumes is a separate enterprise, a factory which turns urine into medicines used to combat heart disease. There are no doubt some opportunities here for our staff clubs.

Read more: 'A foot in the Chinese door' by David Walker

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Barbara Brook reviews EcCentric Visions: ReConstructing Australia by Gaile McGregor
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Tourism is, I suppose, the quintessential postmodern activity – I’ve been to Bali too. This particular tourist, Gaile McGregor, described as a ‘Canadian itinerant scholar’, offers us EcCentric Visions as part of a trilogy; the previous two titles featured Canada and the United States. The link is, she says, that all three are ‘post-frontier societies’. It’s a definition that depends on whether or not you’ve got past the post.
Book 1 Title: EcCentric Visions
Book 1 Subtitle: ReConstructing Australia
Book Author: Gaile McGregor
Book 1 Biblio: Wilfrid Laurier University Press
Book 1 Author Type: Author
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Tourism is, I suppose, the quintessential postmodern activity – I’ve been to Bali too. This particular tourist, Gaile McGregor, described as a ‘Canadian itinerant scholar’, offers us EcCentric Visions as part of a trilogy; the previous two titles featured Canada and the United States. The link is, she says, that all three are ‘post-frontier societies’. It’s a definition that depends on whether or not you’ve got past the post.

Read more: Barbara Brook reviews 'EcCentric Visions: ReConstructing Australia' by Gaile McGregor

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Meredith Sorensen reviews Big Bad Bruce by Dianne Bates and Phoebe Middleton, When Hunger Calls by Bert Kitchen, and The Grocer’s Daughter by Nigel Gray and David Mackintosh
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Bates and Middleton are certainly valiant in their attempts to make a giant hollow rampaging male ego appear cute in Big Bad Bruce. Just look at it go! Indiscriminately swallowing everything in sight, making its way through the world astride a giant throbbing machine. But don’t toss this big glossy number aside – it can serve an excellent purpose. Treat it, allow me to suggest, thus.
Book 1 Title: Big Bad Bruce
Book Author: Dianne Bates and Phoebe Middleton
Book 1 Biblio: A&R
Book 1 Author Type: Author
Book 1 Readings Link: https://www.booktopia.com.au/big-bad-bruce-dianne-bates/book/9780864617712.html
Book 2 Title: When Hunger Calls
Book 2 Author: Bert Kitchen
Book 2 Biblio: Walker Books
Book 2 Author Type: Author
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Bates and Middleton are certainly valiant in their attempts to make a giant hollow rampaging male ego appear cute in Big Bad Bruce. Just look at it go! Indiscriminately swallowing everything in sight, making its way through the world astride a giant throbbing machine. But don’t toss this big glossy number aside – it can serve an excellent purpose. Treat it, allow me to suggest, thus.

Read more: Meredith Sorensen reviews 'Big Bad Bruce' by Dianne Bates and Phoebe Middleton, 'When Hunger...

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Asked to write about the notion of being a New Woman, I was reminded of Virginia Woolf’s peroration, delivered by Pamela Rabe in A Room of One’s Own: ‘It is fatal for anyone who writes to think of their sex.’
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Asked to write about the notion of being a New Woman, I was reminded of Virginia Woolf’s peroration, delivered by Pamela Rabe in A Room of One’s Own: ‘It is fatal for anyone who writes to think of their sex.’

I should sign off now then. Accept a quick defeat and review my career. For women’s magazines are gender concentrate.

I did, however, dust off my women’s library. A library of women writing about their sex. The Female Eunuch, The Second Sex, The Passion of New Eve, The Women’s Room, The Feminine Mystique … How could Woolf be right and still be a feminist?

Read more: 'New for a Hundred Years' by Hilary Burden

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Peter Read reviews The Encyclopedia of Aboriginal Australia edited by David Horton
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The general editor introduces the Encyclopaedia of Aboriginal Australia with a number of challenging statements. He does not want it to be ‘just another encyclopaedia’. He has made it his policy, he writes, to have no ‘academic-style text references, linguists and other students of Aboriginal studies rarely appear, and there are no “studies suggest that” ... This encyclopaedia also aims to tum the usual convention on its head by presenting an Australia with no white people except as they impinge on Aboriginal society.’
Book 1 Title: The Encyclopedia of Aboriginal Australia
Book Author: David Horton
Book 1 Biblio: Aboriginal Studies Press, $130 set
Book 1 Author Type: Editor
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The general editor introduces the Encyclopaedia of Aboriginal Australia with a number of challenging statements. He does not want it to be ‘just another encyclopaedia’. He has made it his policy, he writes, to have no ‘academic-style text references, linguists and other students of Aboriginal studies rarely appear, and there are no “studies suggest that” ... This encyclopaedia also aims to tum the usual convention on its head by presenting an Australia with no white people except as they impinge on Aboriginal society.’

There are the faults of the type any encyclopedia suffers. There are the factual errors. The period in which Thomas Mitchell was Surveyor-General, for instance, was 1828–55 (not 1831–46), and the reference to him omits the important and relatively recent (1985) biography by William Foster.

Read more: Peter Read reviews 'The Encyclopedia of Aboriginal Australia' edited by David Horton

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Cassandra Pybus reviews The Great Indian Novel by Shashi Tharoor
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For the untutored Western reader this exuberant and clever novel about the histrionics of twentieth-century Indian politics invites comparison with Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children. But this is a mistake. Tharoor covers similar territory to Rushdie, and gives voice to the same virulent distaste for the late Mrs Gandhi, but his book couldn’t be more different.
Book 1 Title: The Great Indian Novel
Book Author: Shashi Tharoor
Book 1 Biblio: Picador, 16. 95 pb
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For the untutored Western reader this exuberant and clever novel about the histrionics of twentieth-century Indian politics invites comparison with Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children. But this is a mistake. Tharoor covers similar territory to Rushdie, and gives voice to the same virulent distaste for the late Mrs Gandhi, but his book couldn’t be more different.

The Great Indian Novel is not a tongue-in-cheek estimate of the book’s worth (although it may well be that also) but a literal translation of the ancient heroic epic, the Mahabharata, which this novel has expropriated. In a mock heroic tour de force, Tharoor has cast the political turmoil of India’s in­dependence and separation in the form of the Mahabharata of Vyasa. To quote from one of the novel’s several epigrams: ‘The essential Mahabharata is whatever is relevant to us in the second half of the twentieth century. No epic, no work of art, is sacred by itself; if it does not have meaning for me now it is nothing; it is dead.’

Read more: Cassandra Pybus reviews 'The Great Indian Novel' by Shashi Tharoor

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Meredith Sorensen reviews Signals of Distress by Jim Crace
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Reviewing Signals of Distress in the 11 Sept Guardian Weekly, Philip Hensher accuses Jim Crace of writing a ‘boy’s book’ in the meretricious style of a Golding feigning Conrad, and ending up all at sea.
Book 1 Title: Signals of Distress
Book Author: Jim Crace
Book 1 Biblio: Viking, $29.95 hb
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Reviewing Signals of Distress in the 11 Sept Guardian Weekly, Philip Hensher accuses Jim Crace of writing a ‘boy’s book’ in the meretricious style of a Golding feigning Conrad, and ending up all at sea.

Holy Hemingway! At last ... a ‘boy’s book’ which strips the male ego down to a penis’s standing to attention before a flapping flag of feminine hair. A ‘boy’s book’ with scenes where women enjoy sex. A ‘boy’s book’ which pulls the focus to a wise and brave woman of 35, rendered invisible by a population of men with sexual impulses as direct as the cursor in a video game of ‘Rock heads Clint off at the pass’. And whacko, the strongest male in this ‘boy’s book’ is gay, while the central character makes Downer look as if he has a mind of his own.

Read more: Meredith Sorensen reviews 'Signals of Distress' by Jim Crace

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Suzanne Donisthorpe reviews Solstice by Matt Rubinstein
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When reviewing Matthew Rubinstein,
One is tempted to revert to rhyme.
This opus he has undertaken
Has left me somewhat pale and shaken
At the audacity of his task.
What possessed him, one well may ask
To undertake this mammoth effort?
To play with all that he’s been taught
From Seth, Shakespeare and Tolkien too
It’s really quite a thing to do.
But does it work? Now there’s the rub …
What future for this gifted cub?
Book 1 Title: Solstice
Book Author: Matt Rubinstein
Book 1 Biblio: Allen and Unwin, $14.95 pb
Book 1 Author Type: Author
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When reviewing Matthew Rubinstein,
One is tempted to revert to rhyme.
This opus he has undertaken
Has left me somewhat pale and shaken
At the audacity of his task.
What possessed him, one well may ask
To undertake this mammoth effort?
To play with all that he’s been taught
From Seth, Shakespeare and Tolkien too
It’s really quite a thing to do.
But does it work? Now there’s the rub …
What future for this gifted cub?

Read more: Suzanne Donisthorpe reviews 'Solstice' by Matt Rubinstein

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The white woman existed as story long before I chose to write of her and I can lay no more claim to her than can all of those who have spoken or written of her before. But no less either.
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The white woman existed as story long before I chose to write of her and I can lay no more claim to her than can all of those who have spoken or written of her before. But no less either.

Angus McMillan, self-styled ‘discoverer’ of Gippsland first brought her into being in 1840 with a report of his discovery of a heart cut into the ground near present-day Sale, along with a number of items of women’s clothing, a lock of hair, a broken looking-glass and an open Bible. When he later revealed that he’d also seen a woman being driven unwillingly into the bush by natives, all the elements of romance were there, out of which it was possible to construct her story.

Read more: Liam Davison discusses his own novel 'The White Woman'

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Judy Smallman reviews Killing the Messenger by William McBride
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In 1960, Dr William McBride drew the world’s attention to the dangers of thalidomide. This drug had been found to cause multiple severe abnormalities in babies born to women who has taken it during early pregnancy. In 1961, thalidomide was withdrawn from sale in Australia, and McBride’s reputation grew as an authority on drug-induced birth defects. In 1971 he was awarded the inaugural BP Prize of the Institut de la Vie for his discovery. He used the prize money to establish Foundation 41, where he continued his research.
Book 1 Title: Killing the Messenger
Book Author: William McBride
Book 1 Biblio: Eldorado, $34.95 hb
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In 1960, Dr William McBride drew the world’s attention to the dangers of thalidomide. This drug had been found to cause multiple severe abnormalities in babies born to women who has taken it during early pregnancy. In 1961, thalidomide was withdrawn from sale in Australia, and McBride’s reputation grew as an authority on drug-induced birth defects. In 1971 he was awarded the inaugural BP Prize of the Institut de la Vie for his discovery. He used the prize money to establish Foundation 41, where he continued his research.

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Judy Smallman reviews A Bride for St Thomas by Cynthia Nolan
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Contents Category: Fiction
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Mary Bates, a young Australian living in London in the 1930s, is advised by Dr Gerald Somerset where to do her nursing training: ‘The London for hard work. St Mary’s for sport. Guy’s for flirts … and St Thomas’s for ladies,’ he says. Mary thinks Gerald would be as cold in bed as a dozen frozen eggs, but nevertheless she takes his advice and applies to St Thomas’s Hospital.
Book 1 Title: A Bride for St Thomas
Book Author: Cynthia Nolan
Book 1 Biblio: Angus & Robertson, $16.95 pb
Book 1 Author Type: Author
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Mary Bates, a young Australian living in London in the 1930s, is advised by Dr Gerald Somerset where to do her nursing training: ‘The London for hard work. St Mary’s for sport. Guy’s for flirts … and St Thomas’s for ladies,’ he says. Mary thinks Gerald would be as cold in bed as a dozen frozen eggs, but nevertheless she takes his advice and applies to St Thomas’s Hospital.

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Judy Smallman reviews Cowrie by Cathie Dunsford
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Contents Category: Fiction
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Cowrie makes a pilgrimage from New Zealand to Punalu’u, a Hawai’ian island where her grandfather once lived. She is welcomed by her extended family who live very simply and well on this bountiful island. Cowrie, who is a lesbian, revels in her family’s harmonious way of life, and begins to fall in love with Koana, a heterosexual woman.
Book 1 Title: Cowrie
Book Author: Cathie Dunsford
Book 1 Biblio: Spinifex, $16.95 pb
Book 1 Author Type: Author
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Cowrie makes a pilgrimage from New Zealand to Punalu’u, a Hawai’ian island where her grandfather once lived. She is welcomed by her extended family who live very simply and well on this bountiful island. Cowrie, who is a lesbian, revels in her family’s harmonious way of life, and begins to fall in love with Koana, a heterosexual woman.

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Judy Smallman reviews The Phoenix by Abdul K. Sabawi
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Youness, a Bedouin from the Ananza tribe, comes in from the desert with his slaves and a thousand she-camels. His wish is to buy an olive valley on the outskirts of Gaza, the place where his mother is buried. Youness buys the olive valley and marries Fatima, daughter of the chief of Tuffa (a district of Gaza).
Book 1 Title: The Phoenix
Book Author: Abdul K. Sabawi
Book 1 Biblio: Papyrus, $19.95 pb
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Youness, a Bedouin from the Ananza tribe, comes in from the desert with his slaves and a thousand she-camels. His wish is to buy an olive valley on the outskirts of Gaza, the place where his mother is buried. Youness buys the olive valley and marries Fatima, daughter of the chief of Tuffa (a district of Gaza).

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Judy Smallman reviews The Laughing Dingo and Other Neighbours by Bryce Fraser
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Contents Category: Short Story
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Bryce Fraser takes a break from his inner city flat and moves to the ideal writer’s retreat: a waterfront cottage amongst the trees – and only twenty minutes from the centre of Sydney. He goes fishing and spears, in a most unsportsmanlike fashion, what turns out to be Lennie, the neighbours’ pet leatherjacket who lived beneath the jetty. Oddly enough, these same neighbours entrust him with the job of becoming minder to Rummy, the dingo.
Book 1 Title: The Laughing Dingo and Other Neighbours
Book Author: Bryce Fraser
Book 1 Biblio: Allen $ Unwin, $14.95 pb
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Bryce Fraser takes a break from his inner city flat and moves to the ideal writer’s retreat: a waterfront cottage amongst the trees – and only twenty minutes from the centre of Sydney. He goes fishing and spears, in a most unsportsmanlike fashion, what turns out to be Lennie, the neighbours’ pet leatherjacket who lived beneath the jetty. Oddly enough, these same neighbours entrust him with the job of becoming minder to Rummy, the dingo.

Read more: Judy Smallman reviews 'The Laughing Dingo and Other Neighbours' by Bryce Fraser

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