Abstract
Introduction
This year’s bibliography for Australia has fallen victim to academic workloads: it covers only half of the year in review and does not yet as yet draw upon the full range of resource materials usually consulted. We ask readers to regard it as work in progress the second instalment of which will be added to next year’s bibliographical listings.
Poetry heads the list as usual, with a number of collections requiring mention. David McCooey’s collection, Outside, falls into two sections representing day and night and uses “the recurring device of inside and outside, which acts as geography, psychic device, abacus, consolation”; reviewer Philip Harvey admired “McCooey’s ability to have fun with flux, his skills with different modes of English Poetic, and the time he takes to get right a spectrum of experience, from our dreams of domesticity to our terrors of annihilation” (Australian Book Review 339). Anthony Lawrence’s thirteenth book of poetry, The Welfare of My Enemy, is an experimental piece of narrative poetry with its more than fifty poems (nearly all of which are monologues) constructing a narrative about the many differing reasons why people go missing. Reviewer Martin Duwell saw it as “not a book to be taken lightly … very intense and important” (Australian Book Review 340). Vishvarupa, the second collection from Michelle Cahill, is “a convocation of untouchables and deities – unbelieving, irreverent and sardonic – each a proxy for an aspect of the poet’s (post-colonial) self; each a stand-in, even, for a moment in every human life” (Mark Tredinnick, Australian Book Review 340). Rhyll McMaster’s sixth collection, Late Night Shopping, “pursues a philosophical line of questioning the present since her earliest work – ‘What is death?’ – and, trickier still, ‘What does it mean to be alive?’”. Reviewer Bronwyn Lea notes that McMaster frequently draws upon “the latest findings in science” in her exploration of these issues and emphasizes that the collection is not entirely “a dark meditation on death” for it contains many “daylight poems” as well (Australian Book Review 341). Philip Salom’s latest works are part of his “Keepers” trilogy in which Salom, according to reviewer Cassandra Atherton, is “an Eliotian Fisher king, exploring the fissuring of identity in a triple play of plurality”. To this end, authorship of The Keeper of Fish is attributed to “Alan Fish” and authorship of Keeping Carter attributed to “M.A. Carter” – but Salom is in fact the poet behind both collections. Reviewer Atherton emphasizes that the texts are not “hoaxes”, explaining that “the use of heteronyms and the title of Fish’s book are nods to Fernando Pesoa, the Portuguese poet famous for his heteronymic writing, though she still seems bemused by their overall significance, concluding only that “For their fierce poetic intelligence, their experimentation and their comedy, these books are ‘keepers’” (Australian Book Review 341). Knuckled, the first collection from poet and editor Fiona Wright, won praise from Rose Lucas in whose opinion these “fluent and highly evocative poems bring a sharply observed, sometimes bruised, sometimes raw and violent sense of the worlds they document”. Those “worlds” include ordinary daily life in Sydney, the natural world, Sri Lanka and South-East Asia, and the world of beaches and water (Australian Book Review 338) [see
The year’s fiction included works by Patrick White, Peter Carey, and Drusilla Modjeska each of which stimulated critical discussion on their own right. Patrick White’s posthumous novel The Hanging Garden was written when he was aged 68. As reviewer Peter Conrad explains, White “had just completed his rancorous memoir Flaws in the Glass (1981)” and, having thus “disburdened himself of a lifetime’s gripes and grudges, he now re-imagined adolescence”. This is done through the story of young WWII refugees arriving in Sydney – a girl from Greece and a boy from London. According to Conrad, White worked on this novel “for a few months at the start of 1981” and then “set it aside”. White’s literary agent defied his wishes by preserving the manuscript, which was sold to the National Library and is now “ejected into the world, billed as an ‘unpublished novel’, not the broken off beginning of one”. Conrad explains White’s interest in the plight of his characters – “repatriation was for him [White] a primal drama, almost a lifelong trauma” – and notes that “the youthful vision recovered here is haunted, often disgusted. White’s metaphors defamiliarise Australia” (Australian Book Review 340).
Drusilla Modjeska’s novel, The Mountain, is set in Papua New Guinea in the period of 1968-1973, when Papua New Guinea was heading towards self-government, with the second half of the book set in the present. Reviewer Gillian Dooley drew a comparison with Doris Lessing and praised it as a “heartfelt, intelligent book” whilst warning that the multiplicity of characters can pose difficulties for the reader (Australian Book Review 341). Peter Carey’s new novel, The Chemistry of Tears, struck reviewer Patrick Allington as “less weighty” than Carey’s best works, explaining that “it does not possess that wonderfuil trait Carey achieves in his bigger works … whereby the books totter about yet remain upright, like magnificent, odd-shaped monuments to the great messiness of life”. Allington nevertheless finds Carey to be “in fine form, offering up a story that is audacious yet restrained, tender yet sardonic” (Australian Book Review 338). The story follows two strands, one set in London in 2010, the other (discovered through notebooks) set in 1854; both stories are peopled with characters confronting grief.
The second novel by Kirsten Tranter, A Common Loss, was described by Ruth Starke as “a compelling psychological thriller” which rises to “a higher plane than most thrillers” because of “Tranter’s observational skills, elegance of expression, and ability to describe the inner workings of the narratorial mind” (Australian Book Review 338). The novel deals with issues of trust and perception as a group of friends deal with blackmail after a car accident. Carrie Tiffany’s second novel, Mateship with Birds, disappointed reviewer Bronwyn Lea who found this exploration of 1950s sexuality to contain many “bizarre scenes” and to offer a worryingly “easy resolution” to what she sees as behaviour which is “at minimum, outrageously misguided, and a little icky” (Australian Book Review 338). Christopher Morgan’s second novel Currawalli Street pleased reviewer Carol Middleton with “convincing” portrayals of scenes set in 1914, but Middleton found the novel “stretches credulity” in sections set in the 1970s. The novel deals with war and its impact upon a family across generations, but in Middleton’s view it “would have benefited from a smaller cast of characters” (Australian Book Review 338).
The attraction of memoir to the novelist was apparent in a number of 2012 works. The second book from Francesca Rendle-Short, Bite Your Tongue, hovers between fiction and memoir in its recreation of aspects of her mother’s life as a moral crusader. Donata Carrazza describes the book’s structure as “refreshing” and offers the novel as an example of “the transformative powers of literature” (Australian Book Review 338). Similarly, Michael Sala’s novel The Last Thread is a memoir-like account of a young man’s growth to maturity – “a subtle, cumulative portrait of quiet damage and isolation” in the words of reviewer Kate Holden, who is nevertheless wary of its “tricks with narratological perspective” (Australian Book Review 338).
Amongst the year’s debut novels were Chris Flynn’s A Tiger in Eden, which reviewer Adam Rivett praised for its “lack of a plot”: “there is a fidelity Flynn has to voice and the slow accretion of human details that transcends the mere necessities of plot … Never doubt the power of a gripping narrator” (Australian Book Review 339). The central character is an Irish ex-Orangeman who has fled to Thailand to try to forget his guilt about “Catholic lads I done over and worse”. Sky Kirkham’s review of Romy Ash’s first novel, Floundering, described it as “a grim look at the margins of contemporary Australia, without much hope or catharsis in its resolution. Despite the author’s evident skill, the novel fails to deliver on her clear potential” (Australian Book Review 339). The story concerns a dysfunctional and impoverished family travelling across Australia after the mother has reunited with her children. Simon Cleary’s Closer to Stone was described as a “politically charged tale” which “provides clear evidence of the considerable ability of Simon Cleary as a novelist without going so far as to qualify as a significant novel”. The story concerns a narrator who is searching the Sahara Desert in southern Algeria for his brother, a United Nations peacekeeping soldier who has gone missing. Reviewer Dean Biron reports that, “like so many literary journeys made by First World writers into developing world settings, [the novel] seems so caught up with accounting for the ‘otherness’ of the environment that it comes across more as an outsider’s authoritative critique than as an exploration” (Australian Book Review 340). The Longing by Candice Bruce deals with the occupation of Gunditjmara country by white settlers, examined through parallel narratives in the mid-nineteethn century and the present day; reviewer Francesca Sasnaitis described it as “an ambitious first novel” (Australian Book Review 340).
Finally, mention should be made of Pat Grant’s debut work, Blue, a graphic novel which has been exceptionally well received and may pave the way for graphic novels (i.e. superior adult-audience “comic books”) to enter the arena of mainstream literary endeavour. Set in a fictional Australian beach township in 1989, the novel tells the story of three truants who have their first encounter with the strange “blue people” who have overrun the town. This graphic novel was first self-published in conjunction with an American publisher of quality comics and the respected Australian literary press, Giramondo; their joint venture appears to have met with success, with reviewer Ronnie Scott declaring it to be “both thrillingly, unmistakably Australian and a powerful artistic statement” (Australian Book Review 340) [see
Amongst the year’s more notable anthologies, Fiona Morrison’s edition of the Selected Prose of Dorothy Hewett received praise from the late Bruce Bennett for its “perceptive and informative introduction”. Morrison divides the author’s non-fiction prose writings into Literature, Politics, and Theatre and the selection “fills some of the gaps in Hewett’s published record”; however Bennett notes, sternly, that “the book seriously misrepresents its remarkable author by introducing numerous misprints and errors of syntax, punctuation, and spelling … [which] cannot be attributed to Hewett” (Australian Book Review 338).
Some anthologies were accused of being too large and thus containing less strong material. Reviewer Kate Middleton noted that The Best Australian Poems 2011 edited by John Tranter “acts as the yearbook of Australian poetry”. Some of the strongest poems “engage the natural world”, but other pieces are marked by “urbane bustle”. Middleton’s conclusion is that the best pieces are extremely strong but that a degree of “ephemerality” has set in and that a selection of “more than a hundred poems” may in fact be too large (Australian Book Review 338). The Penguin Book of Australian War Writing, edited by Mark Dapin, also left at least one reviewer dissatisfied. David Day noted that the selection gives more space to “the Boxer rebellion, in which only 600 Australians participated and none was killed” than to the Great War, and that “the desire to cover all wars” leads to the inclusion of “some pedestrian writing”. Whilst complaining that “there is not much reflection in these writings, which are more about the unthinking reflexes of battle and its atmospherics”, Day emphasizes that “there are many gems in the book that make the reader hanker for the longer pieces from which they came” (Australian Book Review 338). The Penguin Book of Australian Bush Writing, edited by John Rose, produced some reviewer dissatisfaction for entirely different reasons. Whilst proclaiming that “This volume is full of good things,” reviewer Susan K. Martin complains that it ignores the many “new and experimental writers living in the bush” and that its examples of “present-day bush stories” are only “real-life disaster narratives” (Australian Book Review 339) [see
As always, readers seeking a critical overview of the year’s production should consult various “year in review” pieces appearing in Westerly: Judith Beveridge’s “Australian Poetry 2011-2012” and Annabel Smith’s “The Year’s Work in Fiction”.
Joseph Cummins’ article, “An Archipelago of Convicts and Outsiders: The Songs of The Drones and Gareth Liddiard”, represents an interesting new development in Australian criticism: it is a critical study of song lyrics from a “pop” group. Old Songs in the Timeless Land: Medievalism in Australian Literature 1840-1910, by Louise D’Arcens, builds on and consolidates growing critical interest in the influence of medievalism on Australian culture. Her study covers Boldrewood, Furphy, Praed, Couvreur, Richardson, Clarke and Gordon, amongst others, and was seen as “a valuable contribution to an important area of historicist inquiry (Gregory Kratzmann, Australian Book Review 341). As suggested by its title, Nicole Moore’s The Censor’s Library: Uncovering the Lost History of Australia’s Banned Books is “a fascinating ‘lost’ or shadow history of what did not get to be a part of Australian culture” and was highly praised for its “meticulous research and nuanced framing of debate” (Maryanne Dever, Australian Literary Studies 27[2]). Moore argues that censorship actively produced the category of the “dirty book” and its corresponding impressionable reader, and helped shape the concept of the “responsible” reader (who could be trusted to read the “dirty book”) [see
The year’s studies of individual authors saw renewed interest in the work of Jessica Anderson, Elizabeth Harrower, Dorothy Hewett, Ern Malley, and Randolph Stow, together with critical pieces on the work of Brenda Walker, Tim Winton, and Rosa Praed [see
Susan Swingler’s The House of Fiction: Leonard, Susan and Elizabeth Jolley was described as “explosive” because of its revelations about the personal life of Elizabeth Jolley and her husband Leonard Jolley, and because these revelations proceed from the pen of Leonard’s daughter. In the words of reviewer Francesca Rendle-Short, Elizaberth Jolley and Leonard “orchestrated ‘a complicated web of lies’ … and … Elizabeth fabricated letters to Leonard’s family, and sent gift parcels from Australia to hide the truth” about Leonard’s abandonment of his daughter. From a more literary point of view the reviewer observes that “this book throws up all sorts of questions about the relationship of a writer to her fiction, a memoirist to her facts, and about the impulse to write” (Australian Book Review 341).
In Proud Australian Boy: A Biography of Russell Braddon, Nigel Starck explores the life of the author of the war classic The Naked Island, who wrote biographies of such figures as Leonard Cheshire, Nancy Wake, and Joan Sutherland. Views from the Balcony: A Biography of Catherine Duncan is Michael Keane’s account of the life of one of the women playwrights who dominated the period of the 1930s and 1940s. Catherine Duncan (1915-2006) achieved success with her 1938 anti-war play The Sword Sung and launched into a career of acting and writing for stage, radio, and then film, before abandoning a possible career with the BBC for married life in France. True North: The Story of Mary and Elizabeth Durack by Brenda Niall “treads carefully through the minefield of controversies about [the Durack] family’s exploitation of aboriginal labour, as well as their own interventions in Indigenous art and politics” and is in the view of Susan Sheridan “a graceful and perceptive biography of two extraordinary creative women” (Australian Book Review 340).
Rachel Robertson’s Reaching One Thousand: A Story of Love, Motherhood and Autism was described as a “tender memoir” of the first ten years of the author’s life in dealing with her son’s autism (Carmel Bird, Australian Book Review 339); the book is based upon her essay which won the 2008 Calibre Prize. Less sensitive but equally informative is Memoirs of a Young Bastard: The Diaries of Tim Burstall November 1953 to December 1954, edited by Hilary McPhee with Ann Standish. Burstall, a key figure in the 1970s rebirth of the Australian film industry, began his film career in the 1960s, but these diaries reflect “the younger, crasser, and less formed Burstall” of the 1950s – “a rampaging young stud, cutting a swathe through staid and conformist Melbourne in the uneasy Cold War years of the early 1950s”, seeking “love and sex wherever he could, sometimes clumsily and always without regret or apology”. According to reviewer John Thompson, “Burstall gives form and substance to much that is dispersed and lost in the rough and ready business of living” (Australian Book Review 340). Class Act: A Life of Creighton Burns is John Tidey’s biography of the man who was first a journalist for and then editor of The Age newspaper. A History of Australia by Mark Peel and Christina Twomey, a volume in the Palgrave Macmillan “Essential History” series and thus directed at an overseas audience, was seen by reviewer Frank Bongiorno as a “well-written book” and “an impressive achievement” by “two historians with a strong command of what is known and understood about Australian history today” (Australian Book Review 340). The Australian Moment: How We Were Made for These Times, by journalist George Megalogenis, was described as “arguably the most important work on Australian economics and modern political history of our generation” (Matthew Lamb, Australian Book Review 340).
Other significant non-fiction works include Not Drowning, Reading by Andrew Relph, which was described as “a psychological autobiography through books” (Gillian Dooley, Australian Book Review 339), As I Was Saying: A Collection of Musings by Robert Dessaix, and Tanya Crothers’ We Talked of Other Things: The Life and Letters of Arthur Wheen 1897-1971, the story of the former Australian military signaller who translated the work of Erich Maria Remarque [see
Bibliographies
General Bibliographies
The bibliography for 2012 does not normally include references for drama, book reviews or journals and offers a very selective listing of non-fiction. Those seeking further information in these categories should consult the following sources:
Australian Book Review <www.australianbookreview.com.au>.
Australian Literature Gateway <www.auslit.edu.au>.
Bibliographies Published Serially
Antipodes: A Global Journal of Australian/New Zealand Literature <http://www.australianliterature.org/Antipodes_Home.htm>.
Australian Literary Studies <http://www.als.id.au>.
Poetry
Cahill, Michelle Vishvarupa 93pp 5 Islands Press (Melbourne) Pb $22.95.
Goodfellow, Geoff with Grace Goodfellow and Randy Larcombe Waltzing with Jack Dancer: A Slow Dance with Cancer 127pp Wakefield (Adelaide) Pb $29.95.
Goodfellow, Grace, see Goodfellow,
Kelen, S.K. Island Earth: New and Selected Poems 335pp Brandl & Schlesinger (Sydney) Pb $29.95.
Larcombe, Randy, see Goodfellow,
Lawrence, Anthony The Welfare of My Enemy 112pp Puncher & Wattmann (Sydney) Pb $24.00.
McCooey, David Outside 74pp Salt (London) Pb £9.99.
McMaster, Rhyll Late Night Shopping 80pp Brandl & Schlesinger (Sydney) Pb $24.95.
Salom, Philip (as “Alan Fish”) The Keeper of Fish 90pp Puncher & Wattmann (Sydney) Pb $24.00.
— (as “M.A. Carter”) Keeping Carter 96pp Puncher & Wattmann (Sydney) Pb $24.00.
Wright, Fiona Knuckled 92pp Giramondo (Sydney) Pb $4.00.
Fiction
Ash, Romy Floundering 224pp Text (Melbourne) Pb $27.95 [novel].
Brown, Honey After the Darkness 292pp Viking (Melbourne) Pb $29.95 [novel].
Bruce, Candice The Longing 360pp Random House (Sydney) Pb $32.95 [novel].
Carey, Peter The Chemistry of Tears 288pp Hamish Hamilton (Sydney) Hb $39.95 [novel].
Cleary, Simon Closer to Stone 304pp Univ of Qld Press (Brisbane) Pb $29.95 [novel].
Corris, Peter Comeback 260pp Allen & Unwin (Sydney) Pb $29.95 [novel].
Grant, Pat Blue 96pp Giramondo/Top Shelf (Sydney) Hb $20 [graphic novel].
Flynn, Chris A Tiger in Eden 224pp Text (Melbourne) Pb $24.95 [novel].
Forster, Deborah The Meaning of Grace 288pp Vintage (Sydney) Pb $32.95 [novel].
Greenwood, Kerry Cooking the Books 312pp Allen & Unwin (Sydney) Pb 22.99 [crime novel].
Lanagan, Margot Sea Hearts 343pp Allen & Unwin (Sydney) Pb $19.99 [novel].
Lokuge, Chandani Softly, as I Leave You 252pp Arcadia (Melbourne) Pb $24.95 [novel].
Modjeska, Drusilla The Mountain 464pp Vintage (Sydney) Pb $32.95 [novel].
Morgan, Christopher Currawalli Street 304pp Allen & Unwin (Sydney) Pb $27.99 [novel].
Murray, Ruby J. Running Dogs 288pp Scribe (Sydney) Pb $29.95 [novel].
Ord, Mandy Sensitive Creatures 304pp Allen & Unwin (Sydney) Pb $24.99 [stories].
O.Reilly, P.A. The Fine Colour of Rust 248pp Blue Door (Adelaide) Pb $29.99 [novel].
Parry, Bronwyn Dead Heat 352pp Hachette Australia (Sydney) Pb $32.99.
Rendle-Short, Francesca Bite Your Tongue 246pp Spinifex (Melbourne) Pb $27.95 [novel].
Sala, Michael The Last Thread 256pp Affirm (Adelaide) Pb $27.95 [novel].
Scourfield, Stephen Unaccountable Hours: Three Novellas 353pp UWA Publishing (Perth) Pb $32.95 [novellas].
Stedman, M.L. The Light between Oceans 380pp Vintage (Sydney) Pb $32.95.
Tiffany, Carrie Mateship with Birds 208pp Picador (Sydney) Pb $19.99 [novel].
Tranter, Kirsten A Common Loss 360pp Fourth Estate (Sydney) Pb $29.99 [novel].
Twohig, Peter The Cartographer 392pp Fourth Estate (Syudney) Pb $29.99 [novel].
White, Patrick The Hanging Garden 226pp Vintage (Sydney) Hb $29.95.
Anthologies
The Best Australian Poems 2011 ed John Tranter 206pp Black Inc (Melbourne) Pb $24.95.
The Penguin Book of Australian Bush Writing ed John Rose 356pp Viking (Melbourne) Pb $32.95.
The Penguin Book of Australian War Writing ed Mark Dapin 472pp Viking (Melbourne) Hb $39.95.
Selected Prose of Dorothy Hewett ed Fiona Morrison 282pp UWA Publishing (Perth) Pb $32.95.
Young Poets: An Australian Anthology ed John Leonard 170pp John Leonard Press (Melbourne) Pb $27.95.
Criticism
General Studies
“An Archipelago of Convicts and Outsiders: The Songs of The Drones and Gareth Liddiard” Joseph Cummins Southerly 72(3) pp165-181.
“Australian Gothic: Theatre and the Northern Turn” Stephen Carleton Australian Literary Studies 27(2) pp51-67.
“Australian Poetry 2011-2012” Judith Beveridge Westerly 57(1) pp30-46.
“The Case of Frederick Deeming: The True Crime Archive as Publication Event” Rosalind Smith Southerly 72(2) pp56-73.
The Censor’s Library: Uncovering the Lost History of Australia’s Banned Books Nicole Moore 280pp Univ of Qld Press (Brisbane) Pb $39.95.
“Damage Control: Australian Literature as Translation” Nicholas Jose Westerly 57(1) pp102-120.
“Detective Writing: Mapping the Sydney Pre-War Underworld” Peter Doyle Southerly 72(2) pp31-47.
“‘Did he want to mix and mate with this man?’: Mateship, Modernism and Homoerotic Primitivism” Damien Barlow Australian Literary Studies 27(1) pp18-32.
The Empire Actors: Stars of Australasian Costume Drama 1890s-1920s Veronica Kelly 320pp Currency (Sydney, 2009) Hb $64.95.
“‘How to encourage our literature’: Australian Fiction in the Australian Public Library” Heather Gaunt Australian Literary Studies 27(1) pp47-61.
“Imagining Women: On Gender and Genre” Rebecca Giggs Overland 208 pp66-71.
“Islands of Multilingual Literature: Community Magazines and Australia’s Many Languages” Michael Jacklin Southerly 72(3) pp129-145.
“Local Moderns: The Jindyworobak Movement and Australian Modernism” Ellen Smith Australian Literary Studies 27(1) pp1-17.
Old Songs in the Timeless Land: Medievalism in Australian Literature 1840-1910 Louise D’Arcens 230pp UWA Publishing (Perth) Pb $34.95.
“Oz Lit in the Moot Court Room: Finding Australian Literature at the University of Melbourne” Stephanie Guest Australian Book Review 338 pp36-37.
“A Poetics of the Plough: Ned Kelly’s Jerilderie Letter” Michael Farrell Southerly 72(2) pp77-96.
“Political Writers in the Neoliberal Age” Rjurik Davidson Overland 209 pp54-58.
Postcolonial Issues in Australian Literature ed Nathanael O’Reilly 300pp Cambria (NY, 2010) Bb US$114.99.
“Scenes from a Radical Theatre: the Red Shed Company” David Carlin Overland 209 pp30-37.
“Tropes of Friendship, Undercurrents of Fear: Alternative Emotions of the ‘Friendly Frontier’” Tiffany Shellam Westerly 57(2) pp16-31.
“Workshopping West Australian Poets for the Chinese Reader” Christopher (Kit) Kelen Westerly 57(1) pp70-97.
“Writing and Ethics: The Air that Falls: Ethics and Aftermath” Rachel Robertson Westerly 57(2) pp71-87.
“Writing and Ethics: The First Negotiation, Amorality, and Temerity” Frank Moorhouse Westerly 57(2) pp48-58.
“Writing and Ethics: Frozen Colonial Soldiers: Aboriginal Research and the Archives” Blaze Kwaymullina Westerly 57(2) pp37-40.
“Writing and Ethics: Hallowing Dark Diamonds” Alison and Graham Kershaw Westerly 57(2) pp66-70.
“Writing and Ethics: Network Till It Hurts” Benjamin Law Westerly 57(2) pp59-65.
“Writing and Ethics: A Whisper in Stone” Kim Scott Westerly 57(2) pp10-15.
“Writing and Ethics: Writing about my Father in Her Father’s Daughter” Alice Pung Westerly 57(2) pp41-47.
“The Year’s Work in Fiction” Annabel Smith Westerly 57(1) pp137-152.
Studies of Individual Writers
Anderson, Jessica “‘Cranford at Morton Bay’: Jessica Anderson’s The Commandant” Susan Sheridan Southerly 72(1) pp121-135.
— “The Queerness of Jessica Anderson’s Fiction” Damien Barlow Southerly 72(1) pp136-152.
Astley, Thea “‘Yrs Patrick’: Thea Astley’s Brush with Timely Advice on ‘the Rackety Career of Novel Writing’” Karen Lamb Southerly 72(1) pp53-65.
Bird, Carmel “A Dream-Temple of Collective Imagination: Exploring Community in Carmel Bird’s Cape Grimm” Gerardo Rodriguez-Salas Australian Literary Studies 27(1) pp76-91.
Boyd, Martin “‘Dark waves of feeling’: Brotherly Themes in Martin Boyd’s A Difficult Young Man” Sonya Hartnett Australian Book Review 339, pp33-34.
Carey, Peter “On the Genealogy of Democracy: Reading Peter Carey’s Parrot and Olivier in America” Peter Mathews Australian Literary Studies 27(2) pp68-80.
Dark, Eleanor “‘Dazzling’ Dark – Lantana Lane (1959)” Helen O’Reilly Southerly 72(1) pp71-80.
Dessaix, Robert “Pushing against the Dark: Writing about the Hidden Self” Robert Dessaix Australian Book Review 340 pp32-40.
Dobson, Rosemary “Southerly Salutes Rosemary Dobson (1920-2012)” Felicity Plunkett Southerly 72(1) pp10-17.
Flanagan, Richard “Submerging the Imperial Eye: Affective Narration as Environmentalist Intervention in Richard Flanagan’s Death of a River Guide” Laura A. White Journal of Commonwealth Literature 47(2) pp265-279.
Harrower, Elizabeth “Turning Inward on Himself: Male Hysteria in Elizabeth Harrower’s The Watch Tower” Naomi Riddle Southerly 72(1) pp204-213.
Hewett, Dorothy “Leaving the Party: Dorothy Hewett, Literary Politics and the Long 1960s” Fiona Morrison Southerly 72(1) pp36-50.
Kinsella, John “Autobiography 5” John Kinsella Meanjin 71(3) pp186-190.
— “Salt Scars: John Kinsella’s Wheatbelt” Tony Hughes-d’Aeth” Australian Literary Studies 27(2) pp18-31.
Lane, William “Alien Intoxications: The Aggressions of a Brisbane Opium Smoker” David Crouch Australian Literary Studies 27(2) pp81-96.
Langley, Eve “‘Gold leaf and tinsel’: Theatricality and Performativity in Eve Langley’s ‘Bancroft House’” Elizabeth (Lucy) Treep Southerly 72(1) pp184-197.
Lawler, Ray “‘This harsh, cawing, strongly felt play’: The Fifty-seventh Summer of Ray Lawler’s Great Play” John Rickard Australian Book Review 33p pp23-24.
Malley, Ern The Sons of Clovis: Ern Malley, Adore Floupette and a Secret History of Australian Poetry David Brooks 368pp Univ of Qld Press (2011) Pb $39.95.
McGahan, Andrew “Pathological Geomorphology and the Ecological Sublime: Andrew McGahan’s Wonders of a Godless World” Brigid Rooney Southerly 72(3) pp55-77.
Praed, Rosa “The Anglo-Australian: Between Colony and Metropolis in Rosa Praed’s ‘The Right Honourable’ and Policy and Passion” Julieanne Lamond Australian Literary Studies 27(1) pp33-46.
Shellam, Tiffany “Re-Imagining Frontiers: A Reflection on Tiffany Shellam’s Shaking Hands on the Fringe” Clint Bracknell Westerly 57(2) pp32-36.
Stead, Christina “‘I am thinking I am free’: Intransigent Reality Versus Utopian Thought in the Later Fiction of Christina Stead” Michael Ackland Southerly 72(1) pp159-180.
Stow, Randolph “An Occasional Free Spirit: Randolph Stow’s Satiric Streak” Gabrielle Carey Westerly 57(1) pp15-21.
— “The Islands of Randolph Stow (1935-2010)” Fiona Richards Southerly 72(3) pp103-118.
Tsiolkas, Christos “The Virtue of Self-Discipline: Reading Tsiolkas and Foucault” Peter Mathews Westerly 57(1) pp209-223.
Walker, Brenda “‘Alone and in close company’: Reading and Companionship in Brenda Walker’s Reading by Moonlight” Bernadette Brennan Australian Literary Studies 27(1) pp62-75.
White, Patrick “Patrick White, Saul Bellow, and the Problem of Literary Value” Simon During Australian Literary Studies 27(2) pp1-17.
— “She Who Moves My Bones: Patrick White’s Posthumous Novel” Peter Conrad Australian Book Review 340 pp12-13.
“‘So much of our life in it’: Arrogant Adelaide and the Theatre of Patrick White” David Marr (Australian Book Review 341 pp12-17.
Winton, Tim “Bodies that Speak: Mediating Female Embodiment in Tim Winton’s Fiction” Hannah Schuerholz Australian Literary Studies 27(2) pp32-50.
— “Shadow of the Dead: Stories of Transience in Tim Winton’s Fiction” Hannah Schuerholz Westerly 57(1) pp164-181.
Wolf Creek (film) Australian Screen Classics: Wolf Creek Sonya Hartnett 64pp Currency (Sydney) Pb $16.95.
Non-fiction
As I Was Saying: A Collection of Musings Robert Dessaix 224pp Vintage (Sydney) Pb $27.95.
The Australian Moment: How We Were Made for These Times George Megalogenis 352pp Hamish Hamilton (Sydney) Pb $32.95.
Class Act: A Life of Creighton Burns John Tidey 194pp Australian Scholarly Publishing (Melbourne) Pb $34.95.
Desert Boys: Australians at War from Beersheba to Tobruk and El Alamein Peter Rees 768pp Allen & Unwin (Sydney) Hb $49.95.
Fishing the River of Time Tony Taylor 224pp Text (Melbourne) Pb $29.95 [memoir].
A History of Australia Mark Peel and Christina Twomey 320pp Palgrave Macmillan (Sydney) Pb $49.95.
The House of Fiction: Leonard, Susan and Elizabeth Jolley Susan Swingler 322pp Fremantle Press (Fremantle, WA) Pb $24.95.
Memoirs of a Young Bastard: The Diaries of Tim Burstall November 1953 to December 1954 ed Hilary McPhee, with Ann Standish 368pp Miegunyah (Melbourne) Hb $59.99.
Not Drowning, Reading Andrew Relph 184pp Fremantle Press (Fremantle, WA) Pb $24.95 [memoir].
The Premier and the Pastoralist: William Morgan and Peter Waite James Waite Morgan 192pp Wakefield (Adelaide) Hb $34.95.
Proud Australian Boy: A Biography of Russell Braddon Nigel Starck 284pp Australian Scholarly Publishing (Sydney) Pb $34.95.
Reaching One Thousand: A Story of Love, Motherhood and Autism Rachel Robertson 240pp Black Inc. (Melbourne) Pb $29.95.
Tales from the Cancer Ward Paul Cox 208pp Transit Lounge (Sydney) Pb $29.95 [memoir].
True North: The Story of Mary and Elizabeth Durack Brenda Niall 300pp Text (Melbourne) Pb $32.95.
Views from the Balcony: A Biography of Catherine Duncan Michael Keane 224pp Macmillan Art Publishing (Sydney) Pb $39.95.
We Talked of Other Things: The Life and Letters of Arthur Wheen 1897-1971 Tanya Crothers 448pp Longueville Media (Sydney) Hb $55.00.
William Lawrence Baillieu: Founder of Australia’s Greatest Business Empire Peter Yule 431pp Hardie Grant (Melbourne) Hb $65.00.