The latest addition to my website is Simon Sellars‘ Applied Ballardianism: Memoir From a Parallel Universe. This novel is an example of theory-fiction, in that it is written as a novel, indeed, is a novel, but, at the same time, as the title tells us, is something of a critique or study of the work … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Thea Astley‘s Drylands, her last novel written when she was seventy-four. It is a bitter novel, whose main theme is how standards have fallen in Australia, with rampart sexism and brutality towards women, racism, corrupt politicians, wanton vandalism, the loss of a reading culture and a hard life … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Thea Astley‘s Coda. This novel is an affectionate tale about an Australian woman, Kathleen, who is getting older and dementia and incontinence are creeping on. Despite this she keeps on going, despite the fact that she gets lost or locked into shops or galleries. We follow her life: … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Thea Astley‘s Beachmasters. This book is set on the fictitious Pacific island of Kristi but is clearly based on what used to be the New Hebrides and is now Vanuatu. It tells the story of a somewhat ramshackle rebellion against the joint colonial powers, the British and the … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Thea Astley‘s An Item from the Late News. This is another first-class novel from Astley on the theme of the different outsider arriving in a closed, small community and not fitting in. The outsider is known only as Wafer (we learn that his real name is Lionel). He … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Thea Astley‘s The Well Dressed Explorer. The eponymous well-dressed explorer is George Brewster who, when a young teenager falls in love with Nita. Nita is happy to play along but also wants to enjoy herself and not just with George. He hovers around her, returning even when his … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Thea Astley‘s A Kindness Cup. Astley deals directly with violence in this novel. The story tells of a group of white vigilantes in the early part of the last century who set out to teach a band of aborigines a lesson (nominally for stealing a baby, which they … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Thea Astley‘s The Acolyte. This novel is now out of print in the UK and US, which is a shame, as it is an excellent novel about both an artist who is thoroughly self-centred and a man who has no sense of purpose and worth, who becomes the … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Gerald Murnane‘s The Plains. This a superb novel from Murnane, best described as a fable, about the huge central area of Australia called The Plains, which seems to be run by some very rich and powerful barons who seem to be combination of Texan cattle barons and European … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Gerald Murnane‘s A Million Windows. This novel(?) follows on from Barley Patch, in that it is as much about writing a novel as a novel. We are presented with a narrator who, he tells us, is not the author, though the distinction seems to me, at least, to … Read more