Australia

Abstract

Introduction

2015 was “a standout year for the publishing of contemporary Australian poetry” in the view of reviewer Jacina Le Plastrier (Australian Book Review¹ 377 December). Robert Adamson’s spectacular poetic career has led The Times Literary Supplement to describe him as “One of the finest Australian poets at work today” and he has recently been awarded a Chair in Poetry at University of Technology, Sydney. His latest collection, Net Needle, includes the winner of the 2011 William Blake Prize, “Via Negativa, The Divine Dark” in Part One of the collection. Part Two is, in the words of Geoff Page, “a vintage collection of autobiographical poems” which is “probably the book’s high point”; Part Three is a series of literary tributes to various poets while Part Four is “more miscellaneous … culminating in the important poem ‘The Kingfisher’s Soul’” (SMH² 16 May 2015). Expressing an equally enthusiastic response to the collection, reviewer A. J. Carruthers observes that Adamson “has worked in both experimental and romantic styles” and reflects the influence of Robert Duncan and Robert Creeley, but “Adamson is at his best when he eschews the romanticism of conventional verse style and explores the grittiness, impurity, and sheer difficulty of language” (ABR 377 December). Page concurs in this view, declaring that Adamson is at “his most characteristic and memorable” when his work involves “gritty realism with a lyrical edge; the ‘hands-on’ knowledge of a physical craft; the opening-out into wider implications about people’s emotional lives” (SMH 16 May).

The concern with “life-writing” issues, whether in autobiographical material or through exploration of the emotional lives of others, continues in Adrian Caesar’s fifth collection, Dark Cupboards New Rooms. The title is amplified in a poem written to appear on Canberra buses — “clear dark cupboards of my history, / build new rooms, spacious, elegant and fine / make me over, make me shine” — and the collection’s “dark cupboards” include “a finely judged suite of poems about [Caesar’s] English family” as well as poems about his late sister, his ancestors working down the pit, and even his surname (Peter Pierce, SMH 24 July). Geoff Page’s view of the book is that

what music there is in Caesar’s work tends to emerge from its subject matter and sincerity of feeling rather than through any metaphorical razzle-dazzle or cleverness with rhyme and metre. Occasionally, however, we are given glimpses of what might otherwise be the case if the poet were as much concerned with sound and shape as with authenticity of content. (Geoff Page, WAR³ 25 April 2015).

Page also responds positively to aspects of Jamie Grant’s ninth collection, Glass on the Chimney, in which “many of the best poems are family anecdotes or character sketches, often marked by a wry irony”; other poems concern incidents in the life of the poet’s father, a Second World War flying-boat pilot. Page enthusiastically endorses Grant’s “remarkable ability to evoke a now-vanished period of small decencies and Austin A40s” (WAR 25 April).

Clive James’ Sentenced to Life is correctly described as “a slim volume of poems” but it is also the sixth book in a series of memoirs that began in 1980 and reviewer Peter Goldsworthy feels it “is probably also the most reliable, as if, paradoxically, James took more poetic license when working in prose. The prevailing tone is a long way from the hilarious self-deprecation of the memoirs”. James is dying, with little time left, and Goldsworthy notes that “impending death, and the guilts and regrets that accompany it, belong to the category of what James calls ‘deeper considerations’ in his recent (and indispensable) collection of essays, Poetry Notebook [2014]”. In Goldsworthy’s analysis, Sentenced to Life is an integral part of the memoirs because

poetry attracts [James] more than any other literary form: it offers a way to tame his extraordinary and often anarchic verbal and comic facility. Yeats famously said that we make poetry “out of the quarrel with ourselves”. These later James poems offer plenty of evidence, and not only of a quarrel with his own gift for words — or with the dying animal he finds himself fastened to. His most deeply considered quarrels are with his conscience. […] Like Prospero, James is also seeking forgiveness. Whether that comes or not is a private matter, but there is a progression in the placement of these poems from self-flagellation and self-pity towards resignation, and acceptance. (ABR 373 August).

Clive James is quoted on the jacket of Les Murray’s new collection, Waiting for The Past: “No poet has ever travelled like this … Seeing the shape or hearing the sound of one thing in another, he finds forms.” According to Stephen Edgar,

the poems in this collection are mostly fairly brief, highly compressed, often written in tercets and quatrains with quite short lines. There is considerable use of rhyme and half-rhyme. There are no long poems — no Buladelahs or cattle places. But smallness of scale does not mean smallness of scope. (ABR 371 May)

Andrew Riemer notes that the poems remember “rural life, particularly in dairy country, during or just after World War II”. This was a time ‘when yellow cows/ would crop to our house doors/ because undermined pasture was collapsing/ seawards’, a time when ‘dogs were apt to be/ untrained mixed-breed biters/ screamed at from the house’”. While “the discontents of modernity colour many of these poems”, Riemer contends that it “would be a mistake, however, to regard Murray solely as an opponent of modern cosmopolitanism, a rural nostalgist suspicious of secular sophistication”; for Riemer, there are also many “signs of cosmopolitan sophistication” which go “hand in hand with considerable erudition and liking for arcane bits of information” (SMH 28 March).

The interest in family and past history is also strong in Meredith Wattison’s Terra Bravura, “a livre compose, a verse autobiography and family history going back at least as far as her grandparents, one of whom was the NSW Labor MLA William Ernest Wattison (1903–75)”. Wattison’s language is “fiercely experimental” and “densely musical”, the effect of this being “to deny more orthodox expectations of family histories and autobiographies (that is, who did what to whom and exactly when?) in favour of intensifying the essential nature of the experiences themselves” (Geoff Page, WAR 7 March). Jessica Wilkinson was awarded the 2014 Peter Porter Poetry Prize for a poem inspired by a tune from eccentric musician Percy Grainger, and reviewer Peter Kenneally affirms that her collection Suite For Percy Grainger “performs the same service for [Grainger’s] whole life and oeuvre, to stunning effect”: “events of the life are here, but are presented on the page almost as a musical score: text under text, lines sliding and rising, visual tricks, collages, whatever it takes to reproduce on the page the music and the strangeness of Grainger’s life” and to “evoke … a future performance, realised at the meeting of text and reader” (ABR 372 June–July).

David Brooks’ Open House continues the year’s interest in autobiographical and family-related material, but also branches out into animal rights. Geoff Page explains that the collection includes “autobiographical poems stretching back through the poet’s life — persuasively detailed and often unsparing”, a section of poems set in a Slovenian village (“these poems have a convincing European flavour”) and others with “strong classical Chinese and/or Japanese influence”. Three poems are “strong demonstrations of real human empathy with animals or of the ‘human’ dimensions that non-human animals possess but that we are remarkably slow to recognize”. Page explains that Brooks holds “strong views” on animal rights, which is

an issue he has thought through for some years and consistently acted upon. From a purely aesthetic angle, proselytising is usually counterproductive but, on the other hand, poetry without moral pressure can often be vapid and self-indulgent. Brooks partly solves this problem by styling himself as a witness rather than a preacher. (SMH 7 March)

Peter Kenneally also recognizes this preoccupation, but is somewhat more critical of the way “the shame and sorrow almost overwhelm the verse and the message”; for him, Brooks’s “tender regard for the animal kingdom is shoved up hard against slaughter, human destructiveness, the hypocrisy of Christmas. He has done all he can but clearly still feels, like Macbeth, that ‘this my hand will rather the multitudinous seas incarnadine, making the green one red’” while his “endlessly tender poems about snails, insects, birds, sheep, as they are, living quietly, feel like offerings, atonements” (WAR 13 June).

Happiness, the posthumous collection from Martin Harrison (who died in 2014) offers poems that are “rich, bountiful, full of the same ‘worshipful attention’, the same sense of open contemplation and wonderment that characterised his previous volumes”. Reviewer Judith Beverage (ABR 377 December) salutes the engagement of the poems, knowing they were written against “the circumstances of Martin Harrison’s final years — his illness, the tragic death of his younger Tunisian lover”:

Many polarities occur in the poetry: light and shadow, rain and summer’s intense heat, sound and silence, distance and focus, rhythms of time and the quotidian. The perceptual depths in Harrison’s poems are always a highlight. Things are looked at not merely in isolation, but in relation to each other, the small within the large, and the large against the small. Harrison draws out the multilayered, multidimensional flux of phenomena, often organising a poem around tensions of movement and stillness … (ABR 377 December)

Ali Jane Smith summarizes Happiness as “the realisation of his abiding interest in human communion, in ecosystems, and in the role of language in thought and bodily experience, synthesised in conversational, though not uncomplicated, language” (WAR 12 December).

Animals are also a feature of Libby Hart’s third collection, Wild: poems in the book’s first section take a Latin word or phrase as epigraph and in many cases are about wild animals (as well as some natural phenomena). Geoff Page writes that “the poems are typically short and densely lyrical — sometimes adventurously so. A few, indeed, are visionary”. For Hart, “the natural world is a miraculous place and we should not be surprised if one animal should suddenly turn into another” (WAR, 7 February). Peter Kenneally describes this “ornate and knotty” collection as

essentially a bestiary, with birds of all kinds, as well as other creatures, including humans, in wild places, blown by winds and salt spray, or bringing wildness to “settled” human habitations. There is a kind of emulsion of the direct and the opaque in her style that makes the mythic, fabulous elements appear to flow out of nature, directly, but in fact it is more as if we were in a wunderkammer of natural history, where the labels on the exhibits go beyond the call of duty and try to tell us everything about everything. (ABR 368 January–February)

Geoff Page describes Hart as “a somewhat mystical relisher of nature, rather in the manner of the early Ted Hughes”, and presents her “passion for nature” as being very different from that of John Kinsella, who “writes as an activist and social critic”. Kinsella’s new collection, Sack, continues the anti-pastoral tradition underlying much of his verse. Grasping the significance of Kinsella’s work, Page explains that

Kinsella’s anti-pastoral poems fill an important gap in Australian poetry. Like many poets of pastoral origins or concerns, Kinsella is ambivalent about his origins. Where poets such as Les Murray or Geoffrey Lehmann tend to be celebratory, Kinsella, in vividly recalled details, presents the harsher, more negative sides of the pastoral-agricultural way of life and so extends a vision that otherwise may have remained only partial. (Geoff Page, WAR 7 February)

Like Brooks, Kinsella voices concerns about animal rights: “in works such as the title poem and ‘The Fable of the Great Sow’, Kinsella graphically details the almost casual, seemingly inevitable cruelty that has always been so much a part of making money from the land” (Geoff Page, WAR 7 February). In a comment echoing Page’s observation about Kinsella as “activist and social critic”, David McCooey’s review notes that the title poem (about a sack of kittens thrown from a speeding car) strikes a note of “shocking human cruelty” which

begins a collection concerned with Kinsella’s great themes: the degradation of the environment, human violence (particularly towards animals), and the potential for language — especially poetry — to represent, and intervene in, those things. Despite the extraordinary variety and output of Kinsella’s career so far, his works (poetry, novels, translations, plays, short stories, autobiographies, works of criticism) share a single, ambitious project: to imagine a relationship between political action and literary speech. (ABR 369 March)

Contemporary Australian poetry has “a complex and ever-evolving relationship with the land, both at home and abroad,” observes Cassandra Atherton:

Almost twenty-five years post-Mabo and entrenched in ongoing ecological crises, Australian poets explore new ways of experiencing and defining place. Where misguided nationalism sought to limit Australian poets to their local landscapes, peripatetic poets have embraced transnational and intimate responses to questions of home. Space in Australian poetry prioritises both dwelling and travelling as intimate psychological activities … (ABR 375 October)

Lucy Dougan’s new collection, The Guardians, “confronts the intimate landscapes of loss and regeneration” in what Atherton describes as “a brilliant anatomy of survival, resilience, and reflexivity”. Dougan ranges across issues from the “uncertain map of family trees” that constitutes genetic heritage to “a moving suite of poems on surviving breast cancer”, mother–daughter bonds, and a “use of totemic animals” which Atherton finds captivating (ABR 375 October). Physical and internal landscapes are also central to The Hazards, by Sarah Holland-Batt, which roams in location from her Queensland origins to Rome, Cuba, and Nicaragua and includes Holland-Batt’s ode-like address to California which appeared in the New Yorker. Reviewer Mike Ladd describes this poet as “a highly skilled creator” and notes that despite her use of “traditional skills” — “finely structured poetry, using assonance, consonance, alliteration, internal and end rhyme” — “the result feels fresh rather than old-fashioned”. Once again, animals are important (part of the collection is a bestiary), prompting Ladd to observe that

There are many bestiaries in contemporary Australian poetry: Adamson, Tredinnick and Fahey with their birds, Hull, Kinsella, Mead and Walker with their mammals and insects. Is this because we are losing so many species — and the poets want somehow to shore up against the loss? Or is it that the animal world simultaneously offers the exoticism of “the other” and a metaphoric window on ourselves? (SMH 24 October)

In a comment echoing that of Ladd, reviewer Geoff Page sees Tracy Ryan’s Hoard as crowning a long-standing tradition:

Ever since the example of Vincent Buckley, the phenomenon of Australian poets of Irish descent travelling or living in Ireland has become more than familiar. There has been a lot of good work done in this area, often rich with cultural resonance, but rarely have these poets dug as deep as Ryan. (WAR 16 January 2016)

Born of Irish lineage, Ryan uses her poems to move from the “desert / of dust & gravel” of her current Western Australian landscape to discover the “hoard” unearthed from the bogs of her ancestral Ireland.

Further evidence of 2015 as “a standout year” for poetry lies in the advent of a new publisher, Cordite Books. This is an imprint of the established online journal Cordite Poetry Review, and since the journal began its existence as a print-form publication in 1997, this new publishing venture represents a return-to-origins. The first four titles from Cordite were John Hawke’s Aurelia, which shares the dream-like surreal quality of its namesake by Gerard de Nerval; Alan Loney’s Crankhandle, which continues Loney’s “long-standing interest in capturing fragmented or passing thoughts and utterances” and “reasserts his belief that these are not fragmented in the sense of being unfinished or worn away, but because, as he says, ‘fragments are all we have, and will ever have’” (Peter Kenneally, ABR 373 August); Ross Gibson’s Stone Grown Cold, which “also employs a kind of fragmentation, but one that is far more gothic and monumental than Loney’s”; and Natalie Harkin’s Dirty Words, “a book of pain, anger, and declaration from an indigenous poet and artist. There is also love, of land and kin, and its expression is that of, as Harkin says, ‘a mournful rage with beauty and deep love between the lines to disrupt and transcend the pain and disdain’” (Peter Kenneally, ABR 373 August).

The year’s debut works include Axis, Book I: “Areal”, from a.j. carruthers (as he prefers his name to appear). This collection “explicitly aligns itself with the lineage of the long poem” and this first instalment exists as 31 extended sequences — prompting reviewer Des Cowley’s observation that it “certainly outstrips Pound’s inaugural efforts — a mere sixteen Cantos issued in 1925 — by a country mile”; Cowley concludes that “Axis is a brazenly experimental work … [which] reads like a poem in search of a performance” (ABR 369 March). Caitlin Maling’s debut collection, Conversations I’ve Never Had, is “concerned with landscapes, both familiar and strange”. The collection includes pieces based upon real-life crimes (a shocking case of filicide in Australia and the murder of James Bulger in Britain), prompting Cassandra Atherton to declare that “the raw savagery of many of [Maling’s] poems is chilling and it is in these more sinister moments, that she demonstrates her deft poetic boldness”. Also reviewing Dennis Greene’s Here Be Dragons, Atherton explains that the title of this debut collection “refers to the way in which English mapmakers used to indicate the edges of their known world. In this way, Greene charts untraversed landscapes of the mind and what lies beyond understanding” (Cassandra Atherton, ABR 375 October). Jillian Pattinson’s first full-length collection, Babel Fish, invokes and “does its best” to embody Borges’ assertion that “Myth is at the beginning of literature, and also at its end”. Geoff Page ends his review by declaring, “Babel Fish is yet another example of an Australian female poet delaying the appearance of her debut collection until her work has fully absorbed its influences and is of an indisputably high standard” (ABR 376 November). Embracing the Razor is the debut collection from long-time playwright and screenwriter John Upton. Arranged in four sections, the collection “moves from grief to satire, with social analysis and travel along the way. The poems about the death of the poet’s wife in the opening section are among the most powerful in the book” (Geoff Page, ABR 370 April).

Mention should also be made of Songs of Darlinghurst by Mervyn O’Hara (1903–1929), who was described by Kenneth Slessor as “a gay Micawber of the freelances”. Many of O’Hara’s poems first appeared in the Bulletin, but this is the first collection of his work, appearing more than 80 years after his early death. The title poem pre-dated Slessor’s similarly-titled Darlinghurst Nights by more than a year. His poems are “unashamedly popular in their subject matter and language”, but “function as a form of journalism, recording in lyrical form the activities and manners of the times” (Peter Kirkpatrick, Southerly 75[2]). Songs of Darlinghurst is the grand-daughters’ selection of 37 poems drawn from family holdings of journals and manuscripts.

Arguably the year’s most-discussed novel was The Natural Way of Things by Charlotte Wood — “a powerful story of misogyny and corporate control taken to disturbing extremes” (Portia Lindsay, WAR 26–27 September). The storyline centres upon 10 young women held in some kind of camp, unsure of whether they are victims of a religious cult or part of a bizarre reality-television show. Susan Lever explains:

It emerges that the ten young women living in the camp are modern-day media criminals condemned for making public the sexual transgressions of prominent men – as the mistress of a politician, the sexual conduit for a football team’s bonding, or the victims of harassment by important businessmen, coaches, or clergymen. (ABR 376 November)

Lever detects echoes of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, of William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, and of Barbara Baynton’s classic Australian story “The Chosen Vessel” (1896) (ABR 376 November). Another much-discussed novel, The Women’s Pages by Debra Adelaide, uses alternating chapters to tell the parallel stories of Ellis, a young woman of the 1960s who is preparing to leave her husband and take her baby with her, and Dove, a middle-aged present-day woman grieving over the death of her adoptive mother and writing a novel about Ellis. Susan Sheridan explains that “everyday life as women have traditionally experienced it, a life of household caring and cooking and cleaning, is central to Ellis’s story of the 1960s” and “this traditional feminine role feeds into her later success in the world of paid work — as editor of a mainstream women’s magazine, which gives this novel its title”. By contrast, Dove’s story “is mostly about writing. She has entered that obsessed state”. Sheridan concludes that “The Women’s Pages is a satisfyingly complex novel” and that “Adelaide has written a powerful story about the loss of the daughter to the mother, of the mother to the daughter (ABR 376 November).

Described as “one of the most ambitious and exciting fiction writers at work in Australia”, Malcolm Knox has won two prestigious Walkley Awards for his journalism and is also a “prolific author of diverse non-fiction works” (Kevin Rabalais, ABR 372 June–July). His new novel, The Wonder Lover, uses the first-person plural voice of a man’s offspring to present a main character (the father, John Wonder) who tells true stories to his children. This “Authenticator-in-Chief for humankind’s last word on extraordinary fact” presides over three wives and three families — but becomes smitten (conceptually rather than emotionally) by Cicada Economopoulos and seeks to “factually authenticate” her as the world’s most beautiful woman. Rabalais seems bemused by the novel, declaring it a “testament to Knox’s talent and creativity that we remain, throughout, excited by the ambition and potential of this novel” but the “loose language and the filler repetition forces us to wish for a tighter grip”. Marion Halligan’s Goodbye Sweetheart elicited a somewhat similar response from Judith Armstrong, who observed that

Halligan continues to grapple with the problem of achieving popular appeal without abandoning literary overtones. Goodbye Sweetheart does it better [than previous novels], aided by an assemblage of less self-consciously bookish characters and the adroit handling of genuine literary elements such as structure. (ABR 370 April)

Opening with the drowning of a man in a public swimming pool, the story spirals outward to other seemingly peripheral characters before surprising the reader with interconnections. In Armstrong’s words, readers “wonder whether this is one of those collections of short stories where unconnected individuals make occasional appearances in other characters’ lives”, but the end result is “lively and entertaining” (ABR 370 April). Armstrong criticized the “intertextuality” of Halligan’s novel (“This reduction of the role of ‘Literature’ to textual name-dropping still distracts”), however intertextuality was an impressive feature of Gail Jones’ new novel, A Guide to Berlin. Gillian Dooley writes that “Jones’s oeuvre is steeped in intertextuality and imbued with the movement of literary currents and personal bonds across cultures”, so it is no surprise that Nabokov is the novel’s “guiding spirit” and is the reason six international characters visit the German city and begin a game of “speak-memory” in which each introduces themselves through a “remembered story or detail”. The novel “is deliberately incomplete and in no sense a failure”, concludes Dooley (ABR 374 September).

Several writers produced new work after a long absence. David Ireland, thrice winner of the Miles Franklin Literary Award in the 1970s, produced his first work since The Chosen (1997) with The World Repair Video Game, serialized in the journal Overland. It will be published in book-form in 2016. A Short History of Richard Kline is Amanda Lohrey’s first new novel in a decade. Klein, the protagonist, finds himself trapped in “something called normality” and turns increasingly to drink and self-pity until his growing existential anger leads to an incident of “road rage”. Felicity Plunkett notes that this moment of angry violence “illuminates the barely suppressed rage of so many of the urban Generation X characters on whom much of Lohrey’s recent fiction focuses” (ABR 369 March) and Morag Fraser declares that Lohrey “has an unusual capacity for intellectual and emotional empathy, and a language supple enough to express both” (SMH 21–22 March). Stephen Daisley’s Coming Rain appears five years after his award-winning debut novel Traitor (2010). Set in 1956, in the wheat and sheep country of Western Australia, it explores masculinity through the story of a younger and an older man who work itinerantly as a team. Despite differences in their approach to life and women, the two men “work with a resourcefulness and unspoken pride that expresses the truth that it’s the respect for the job, and the self-respect associated with doing the job right, in which the true dignity of work is to be found” — until the young man becomes smitten with the boss’s daughter and begins to appreciate the value of intimacy. This story runs parallel with two other narrative strands, producing a “moving and brilliant novel” which builds toward a conclusion “that in its tragedy and tenderness is perfectly in keeping with both the ‘desire to be alive’ and the colonial logic and history of the South-West frontier” (David Whish-Wilson, ABR 372 June–July). Geraldine Wooller’s fourth novel, Trio, comes four years after Transgression (2011) and consolidates her growing reputation as a writer with “flair for character development” whose prose is “impeccable, devoid as it is of jargon, clichés, and overstatement”. Trio concerns a group of friends who meet in the UK in the mid-1960s, bond in friendship, and move in together, socializing in theatre-circles and over time relocating to Italy and then Australia. Wooller’s account of her characters’ lives is “compelling and believable” as Celia, Marcia, and Mickey — the trio — “endure failed relationships, poor health, and the spectre of their own mortality” (Jay Daniel Thompson, ABR 370 April).

Susan Johnson’s 10th novel, The Landing, centres upon characters who have (in the words of Anthony Lynch) “failed to remain part of ‘a whole’” — a man who struggles to make sense of his wife’s departure after decades of marriage, a divorced woman, a woman abandoned when her husband ran off with the daughter of the divorced woman, and others dealing with sudden aloneness of some kind. Lynch concedes that “it all sounds a bit Last Days of Chez Nous, or like French farce”, but he insists upon the author’s serious thematic intent and asserts that “Johnson’s movement between characters, her shifts in place and time, are deft, her descriptions often devastating” (ABR 374 September). Louise Swinn has also praised Johnson as “a graceful and fluid writer” offering “intelligent commentary about the way society works” (WAR 29–30 August). As if building upon some of Johnson’s themes, the three-part story told in Debra Oswald’s Useful concerns a hapless middle-aged protagonist who, after an unsuccessful suicide attempt, decides he can “be useful” in the world by donating a kidney to a stranger. Oswald asks, “What makes a person useful? What gives them worth and value in the world? And who gets to decide?” (Naama Amram, ABR 370 April).

Forever Young is fifth in the Steven Carroll “Glenroy” series that began with The Art of the Engine Driver (2001). The series follows the life of a family since 1957, and this novel brings them to 1977 and sets “the musings and ruminations of [their] inner lives” against “the brutal world of political power in Canberra”. The book’s title is taken from a Bob Dylan song and acts as “an allusion to the novel’s exploration of nostalgia for the sweet bird of youth”, but Kerryn Goldsworthy notes that “the phrase ‘forever young’ is also an oxymoron, and the paradox it names – the condition of being at once both in and out of time – is at the heart of this novel, as with so much of Carroll’s fiction”. Goldsworthy sets out Carroll’s aim as follows:

Patrick White once remarked that he “wanted to discover the extraordinary behind the ordinary”. This has been Carroll’s aim with the Glenroy series: “social realism had its place in the conception of things,” he has said, “but I also knew that I had to find another way of depicting ordinary suburban life.” He has made this harder for himself by keeping his writing determinedly secular, avoiding the bright patchwork mysticism that gives White’s “ordinary” characters their depth and breadth. (ABR 372 June–July)

Carroll’s style works

through rhythm and through the repetition of certain key words and phrases. It may take a while for a reader new to Carroll’s work to realise that these repetitions are deliberate, like the chorus of a song, and to realise further that what does look at first glance like simple social realism is actually something rather different. (ABR 372 June–July)

By chance, Alan Gould’s new novel, The Poets’ Stairwell, also gives significance to the year 1977: this was when Gould travelled through Europe with his friend Kevin Hart. A similar tour “forms the narrative thread for The Poets’ Stairwell”, says Gillian Dooley; “this is a roman à clef and those in the know will enjoy the identification game” (ABR 372 June–July). In contrast to these novels and their concern with the past, James Bradley’s fourth novel, Clade, depicts “an unsettlingly convincing near future”. Climate scientist Adam Leith has reservations about bringing a child into a world facing ecological disaster — but his partner Ellie is undertaking fertility treatment:

Clade is essentially an ensemble piece composed of interconnected short stories which all link back to Adam and Ellie. Each story shifts forward in time and offers new insights into a rapidly changing world as it lurches ominously from one new normal to the next. (Amy Baillieu, ABR 369 March)

The year had its share of unusual novels. The Mystery of the Venus Island Fetish by Dido Butterworth requires mention because Butterworth is a pen-name of Tim Flannery, who is described as having “edited and introduced” the text. According to Fiona Gruber, “Flannery may have tossed this off as a stand-alone caprice” in which he “lets rip with a brilliantly daft romp that … mines the mindsets and manners of pre-war Australia to perfection” (ABR 369 March). The titular fetish is a fearsome head-dress made of human skulls, and the mystery concerns the possibility that some of the skulls have been switched. A different kind of eccentricity appears in Quicksand by Steve Tolz, which prompted reviewer Chris Flynn to remark, “Pity the unfortunate marketing department tasked with explaining this one”. “A beguiling novel that confounds and astonishes in equal measure, often on the same page”, it abandons “conventions of plot and structure” only to prove they “are not missed”. Flynn describes the novel as “part Chuck Palahniuk, part David Foster Wallace, part Thea Astley”. The story “chronicles the Sisyphean nightmare that is the life of one Aldo Benjamin, inventor, entrepreneur, and perennial loser”. Lest Flynn’s tone be read as negative, it is important to add that he praises the book highly, especially its second half:

Here, Benjamin’s high-functioning maniacal genius is given free rein, as he defends himself in a murder trial. To say this section is a tour de force is to understate the madness of almost 200 pages of prose, in which Benjamin’s stream-of-consciousness vernacular, a helix of style and form, coalesces around a simple question: what is art, and where does it come from? (ABR 371 May)

Crow Mellow, the sixth novel by Julian Davies, is an update of Aldous Huxley’s Crome Yellow (1921) and deals with a bush-salon where a millionaire couple gathers artists and ideas. It is an illustrated novel, with Phil Day drawings on each page, and reviewer Ronnie Scott notes a strong interaction between words and drawings: “Sometimes [Day] illustrates the plot; other times he extends and shadows it”. Scott concludes we need more books like this — “ambitious, unruly, and utterly strange” (ABR 368 January–February).

This year’s bibliography lists eight short story collections by individual authors; by comparison, a decade ago the 2005 bibliography listed just three. In another sign of a revival of the form, a short story collection won the prestigious 2015 Australian/Vogel Literary Award for an unpublished manuscript by an author under 35. Murray Middelton’s When There’s Nowhere Else to Run is only the second short story collection to win since the award began in 1980 (the first was Robyn Walton’s Glace Fruits [1986]). Laurie Steed writes that this debut collection is a

pleasurable, if not ground-breaking, one. The landscapes are familiar, the character arcs very recognisable to anyone with even a passing interest in Australian literature. More enticing, perhaps, is Middleton’s spare, almost clinical prose in what is, for the most part, a cleverly and coherently linked meditation on a theme. […] Part Winton, part Cate Kennedy, Middleton is similarly assured in voice and tone. (ABR 373 August)

Christos Tsiolkas’s collection Merciless Gods is considered by reviewer Peter Craven as mid-career proof of the author’s remarkable development; the book is a “steady stream of fine, poised stories that can so easily encompass shocking subject matter but have a balance, a power of restraint, that is the hallmark of art” (SMH 15–16 November 2014). Another major writer to turn to short stories is the versatile poet John Kinsella: Crow’s Breath follows on from his 2013 collection Tide. These are short stories, 27 in all, centred on Kinsella’s home territory, the wheatbelt of Western Australia. Peter Craven writes that the “range of the stories is remarkable, without any sense of showiness or strain” (SMH 23–24 May). Georgia Blain writes of Tegan Bennett Daylight’s Six Bedrooms, “It is rare to read a collection of short stories that work so well individually and that also create such a satisfying and coherent whole” (ABR 377 December). Veteran writer Carmel Bird has specialized in the short story and the “marvellous” pieces in My Hearts Are Your Hearts “defy paraphrase because their musicality is so integral and so intricate yet they consistently stun the mind and touch the heart” (Peter Craven, SMH 16–17 November).

Continuing the literary world’s late rediscovery of octogenarian writer Elizabeth Harrower, 2015 saw the publication of A Few Days in the Country and Other Stories, her first collection. Earlier versions of five of these 12 stories were published during the 1960s and 1970s in Australian magazines and anthologies. Two stories, “The Fun of the Fair” and “The City at Night”, are previously unpublished. Other entries have appeared this year in journals. The diverse publication history attests to the quality, power, and reach of Harrower’s writing (Bernadette Brennan, ABR 377 December); reviewer John Freeman writes, “One has to think hard of a book in which so much pleasure has been wrenched from so much pain” (WAR 31 October–1 November).

Debuts in fiction besides Murray Middelton’s Vogel-winner include Miles Allinson’s debut novel, Fever of Animals, winner of the 2014 Victorian Premier’s Unpublished Manuscript Award. In it, a character also named Miles goes in search of a surrealist painter who disappeared decades ago. Helen Elliott writes, “This is an extravagantly good novel. Not only does it have assurance and authority, it is made with that remarkable magical force of authenticity” (SMH 5 September). Another significant debut novel with autobiographical connections was Antonia Hayes’ Relativity. Hayes has spoken publicly of how her own son is a survivor of shaken-baby syndrome perpetuated by his father, like the adolescent savant at the centre of her novel. “With its excellent characters, sharp writing and intricate exploration of difficult ethical issues, Relativity is a strong debut” (Ed Wright, WAR 25–26 July).

Alice Pung and Kari Gíslason have both previously published memoirs relating to their multi-cultural heritages (Cambodian-Chinese-Australian and Icelandic-Australian, respectively) before making fiction debuts. Pung’s debut novel Laurinda is set in an exclusive private girls’ school. Although it appeared on “best-of” lists for both the Australian Book Review and the Age, Agnes Nieuwenhuizen is ambivalent in her assessment:

For some writers making the transition from one genre to another proves difficult and so it is here for Pung as she strives to imagine and realise the lives and voices of characters and situations. Her portrayal of [protagonist] Lucy’s family is as warm, generous and credible as in her other writing. However, her depiction of the Laurinda girls, teachers and parents is wobbly in tone and register. (WAR 6–7 December 2014)

Gíslason’s The Ash Burner is also a coming-of-age novel, albeit with a very different, more serious tone as it follows its protagonist growing up in a coastal town and being drawn into a complex relationship with a slightly-older couple. Catriona Menzies-Pike writes, “Gíslason captures the searching awkwardness of adolescence very acutely” (ABR 370 April).

The increase in the number of single-author short story collections seems to have led to a decrease in the number of anthologies published in 2015, though the state of the economy may also have played a role. The stream of “Best” anthologies from Melbourne publisher Black Inc has by now consolidated into a welcome tradition and readers can sample the best essays, poems, and stories from both established and emerging writers through these judicious selections. In her review of The Best Australian Poems 2014, Jennifer Strauss emphasizes that Australian poetry is “a broad church” and speaks highly of the way editor Geoff Page has represented such wide-ranging and diverse material (ABR 368 January–February). Other annual offerings from Black Inc can claim the same accolade — as can The Sleepers Almanac X, edited by Zoe Dattner and Louise Swinn. In the words of Jenni Kauppi,

In more than ten years on the scene, Sleepers has positioned itself as both champion of the small press sector — the natural home of the short story — and a canny player in the broader publishing landscape; its Almanac has been a reliable litmus test for the direction of new Australian writing. (ABR 377 December)

This, unfortunately, is the final instalment of the series (perhaps as a result of the rising number of author-specific collections?), but it has ended on a very high note, with Kauppi praising the “bold curatorship” of editors Swinn and Dattner, describing them as “shrewd arbiters of the dense, fibrous space inhabited by the short story” (ABR 377 December). The year also saw publication of Breaking Beauty, an anthology of short stories by graduates of the University of Adelaide, edited by Lynette Washington.

Two works provided insightful overviews of Australian writing. In Contemporary Australian Literature: A World Not Dead Yet, Nicholas Birns presents “a series of substantial essays that attempt a survey of the field of Australian literature, past and present”. The “disparate cast of poets and writers” are united because “their work represents a counter-narrative to what Birns regards as the totalising tendencies of neoliberalism”; their works “suggest that there are ways of responding to place, or forming communities and relationships, or judging value that evade the one-size-fits-all approach of the market” (Geordie Williamson, WAR 20–21 February 2016). Looking further back into Australian literary history, Michael Farrell’s Writing Australian Unsettlement: Modes of Poetic Invention 1796–1945 offers “a dense, scholarly but also revelatory and enlivening book” which sets out “an alternative literary history of colonialism in which the process [of developing an Australian literature] was at least as much one of unsettlement” (Peter Kenneally, WAR 20–21 February 2016).

One unusual and fascinating critical piece was “Eclogue Failure or Success: The Collaborative Activism of Poetry” by John Kinsella and Charmaine Papertalk-Green, which documents the process by which these two writers planned and discussed “a book of poetry and stories and non-fiction pieces around our views and frustrations over the paternalistic colonisations of mining companies”. The article recounts their discussions, taking the reader inside a range of issues and documenting their correspondence (which was largely conducted through “exchange of emails, in ecologic fashion”). The selection of essays in Shirley Hazzard’s We Need Silence suggests the possibility of a “supposedly antiquated world view… roaring back into view”. According to Geordie Williamson, Hazzard writes as a “superbly insightful” common reader, “concerned to coddle the mystery posed by the survival of some literature over time rather than murder it for the purposes of dissection”. While Williamson finds some of the reviews in the collection aloof, he grants that

for those of us who have always regarded Hazzard’s posture toward Australia as essentially indifferent and ungenerous, her review of Patrick White’s Eye of the Storm is a model of magnanimity and shared insight into the unfairly marginal status of Australian letters in relation to the old Anglosphere centres. (WAR 5–6 March 2016)

The year’s output included the biographies of Thea Astley and Thomas Keneally discussed below (see Non-Fiction), and since Australia now “claims” J. M. Coetzee, it is important to mention David Attwell’s J. M. Coetzee and the Life of Writing, which James Ley hails as “an illuminating work of archival criticism” by “one of the world’s pre-eminent Coetzee scholars” (ABR 374 September).

Drusilla Modjeska’s Second Half First is the first memoir from an author already significant to Australian life-writing for her work on the lives of women writers (Exiles at Home [1981]) and a biographical novel about her mother (Poppy [1990]). At one point in this memoir, Modjeska meets an old lover and explains the book is not just about him, even though he had triggered it: “It’s about a whole lot of other things, my mother, psychoanalysis, reading, writing, New Guinea, living away from where I was born” (p. 332). Felicity Plunkett writes that the book “offers a diaphanous and nuanced vision of the layers of a life, and of life writing. Its magnificent collective portrait reveals Modjeska’s life as part of those it intersects with, including the women writers she lives with and reads” (WAR 10–11 October).

Working in a hybrid form echoing Modjeska’s Poppy, Kate Grenville’s One Life is the story of the author’s mother, Nance Gee, expanded from Gee’s own attempts at autobiography. With the texture of a novel, Grenville recreates the experience of an ordinary but fascinating life lived in Sydney through the Depression, the Second World War, and into the 1950s, providing an important depiction of women’s experience. Peter Craven suggests the work sometimes falls into triteness while still finding that “Grenville’s recapitulation of her mother’s voice is in the end very moving” (SMH 4–5 April). Bernadette Brennan concludes that “the memoir is Grenville’s gift to her mother. It is also a gift to countless readers who will recognise their own experience, or their mother’s experience, in these pages” (ABR 370 April).

Two other major novelists turned to memoir in 2015. In a companion work to Land’s Edge: A Coastal Memoir (1991), Tim Winton’s Island Home: A Landscape Memoir collects Winton’s more recent reflections on the Australian landscape. Delia Falconer notes that

beneath its beautiful descriptions, Island Home also mounts a quietly polemical — and not uncontentious — argument: that to save this environment, non-indigenous Australians need to embrace it without shame. While Winton pays sincere homage to the long Aboriginal history of “country”, he seems to suggest the original, physical force of the land trumps everything. (SMH 24 October)

Gerald Murnane’s Something for the Pain: A Memoir of the Turf, is less ambitiously concerned with the author’s life-long passion for gambling on horse races. “Instead of a ‘notable and closely contested horse race’, the memoir reads as a convincing victory over a moderate distance. The sentences are expertly chiselled and each anecdote is well shaped, but deeper complexity is largely avoided” (Shannon Burns, ABR 375 October). Better received was Reckoning: A Memoir, by comedian Magda Szubanski; Peter Craven went as far as to write:

Reckoning is a riveting, overwhelmingly poignant autobiography by a woman of genius. It is a book about how someone might live with the idea of killing the thing they love. It is a story of love and death and redemption and a daughter’s love for her father. It is an extraordinary hymn to the tragic heroism at the heart of ordinary life and the soaring moral scrutiny of womankind. Every library should have it, every school should teach it. (WAR 3–4 October)

Two significant non-fiction quest narratives appeared in 2015. Ramona Koval’s Bloodhound: Searching for my Father is an “engaging but disturbing memoir” which describes her “obsessive attempts to find herself another father”, following clues that the man she knew as her father may not have been so; her quest is intertwined with the complexities of her parents’ background as Holocaust survivors (Sheila Fitzpatrick, ABR 371 May). Lucy Sussex’s biographical and bibliographical quest, Blockbuster: Fergus Hume and the Mystery of a Hansom Cab, seeks out the story of the late-nineteenth-century Melbourne detective novel and its elusive author; Peter Pierce writes that “the story is told with wit and lightly worn scholarship” (WAR 4–5 July).

In a work examining the same milieu, Michael Wilding’s Wild, Bleak Bohemia narrates the interconnected lives of Marcus Clarke, Adam Lindsay Gordon, and Henry Kendall by weaving together primary documents; he labels it a “documentary”. Susan Martin writes that the work’s “illusion … is that it tells the truth” through its “massive accumulation” of detail; “it is a lovely feeling, and if anyone could do it Wilding could” (ABR 372 June–July).

The year saw the appearance of the first biographies of two major twentieth-century Australian novelists, both profoundly shaped by Catholicism. Karen Lamb’s Thea Astley: Inventing Her Own Weather was praised as an “un-putdownable biography” which “contextualises Astley’s novels through its extensive and layered portrayal of the writer’s childhood, school years, married life and relationship to major issues of identity such as religion, gender and sexuality” (Southerly 75[2]). Noting the many gaps in the account of Thomas Keneally’s personal life in Interestingly Enough, Gerald Windsor writes, “Stephany Steggall has written a bravely fair-minded and very readable book about him. To call it a biography, however, is to draw a very long bow”. He suggests than when Keneally has died, she should be the first to write the proper biography which will then be possible (WAR 31 October–1 November). Peter Pierce, who has previously written a monograph on Keneally’s fiction, is less concerned by any gaps, putting Stegall’s work alongside two landmarks of Australian literary biography, David Marr’s Patrick White and Hazel Rowley’s Christina Stead and calling it a “thoroughly researched, fluently written account” (SMH 7–8 November).

Modern Love: The Lives of John & Sunday Reed, the dual biography of the noted Melbourne art patrons by Lesley Harding and Kendrah Morgan, received a mixed reception. Jane Grant writes:

Much of the book will be all too familiar to readers of previous histories. The Heide of Modern Love is once again an Eden in the creative wilderness of mid-twentieth-century Australia, where the patrician Reeds aesthetically, intellectually, and financially nurture the talents of a circle of young pioneering artists. (ABR 377 December)

Grant goes on to criticize the book for rehashing received interpretations and using questionable evidence; she calls it “a curious blend of protectiveness and exposé” (ABR 377 December). Reviewer Emily Bitto agrees that the book says little which is new, but is more positive, noting that despite the publicity highlighting the risqué elements of the Reeds’ open marriage, it is actually “fairly decorous in tone”; “at heart Modern Love is an impeccably researched and important piece of art history” (SMH 31 October–1 November). Martin Edmond also published a dual biography of the art world — Battarbee and Namatjira — telling the intersecting lives of the Aboriginal artist Albert Namatjira and his white mentor, Rex Battarbee. Reviewer Philip Jones praises Edmond’s “fresh and engaging approach”, but expresses concern over the lack of referencing for individual quotations (SMH 28 February–1 March). Also demonstrating the popularity of dual biographies was Brian McFarlane’s Double-Act: The Remarkable Lives and Careers of Googie Withers and John McCallum, “a factual, kindly reflective” account of the lives of the prominent actor-couple (Michael Shmith, SMH 18–19 July).

Celebrated biographer Brenda Niall published a biography of Catholic archbishop Daniel Mannix, whose long influence on Australian public life stretched from the conscription debate in the First World War to his death at 99 in 1963. Michael McGirr writes “Mannix is the most wise, shrewd and elegant biography yet produced of this complex and beguiling man” (SMH 3–4 April). Gerard Henderson published the most comprehensive account yet of the life of another politically influential Catholic in Santamaria: A Most Unusual Man. One of Australia’s finest historians, Geoffrey Bolton, died in 2015, but not before finishing a final book about a fellow Western Australian — Paul Hasluck: A Life. Ross Fitzgerald calls Bolton’s account of the long-serving federal minister and governor-general “captivating” (WAR 31 January–1 February). After legal action, the unsold copies of the first print run of David Day’s biography of former prime minister Paul Keating were pulped and certain claims removed for the reprint. Although the biography is hampered by the lack of input from Keating, Geordie Williamson finds it the “most complete account we have yet had” and suggests that literary critics like himself might just have to put aside their expectation of finding “ontological coherence” in the character of necessarily chameleon-like politicians (WAR 28 February–1 March).

The 25th of April marked 100 years since the landing of ANZAC troops at Gallipoli and a peak of the centenary commemoration of the First World War. As much as anyone, war correspondent CEW Bean helped create the ANZAC myth and so far two biographies of him have appeared during the centenary. Popular historian Peter Fitzsimmons finds them both excellent, Ross Coulthart’s Charles Bean offering “a forensic analysis of what Bean wrote for the papers, and in his subsequent historical accounts, judged against what he wrote in his diary at the time of what happened” and Peter Rees’ Bearing Witness giving an account of Bean’s whole life (SMH 25 April). Jeffrey Grey finds Bearing Witness worthy of some praise but writes,

As with much other and recent writing on Australian war history, the big questions are the hard ones, but they are also the ones that matter most. Is it too much to hope as the centenary proceeds that we might engage more often and more directly with them? (SMH 29 May)

One book which might claim to do this is Carolyn Holbrook’s ANZAC: The Unauthorised Biography (2014). Reviewer Anna Clark writes, “Holbrook has compiled a rich array of material that catalogues and analyses successive interpretations of Anzac, which she does evenly and without sentiment”. The book, she explains, “attempts to beat all that has been previously ‘imagined’ about the Great War into shape” (SMH 25 October 2014).

Terminally ill, ex-pat poet and critic Clive James unexpectedly lived through 2015. His awareness of life ending has brought him a new burst of productivity. Peter Craven writes that James

is a staggering essayist and a critic of the highest distinction. Latest Readings is a book about the books James is reading now he knows time is limited. But it’s also, with exceptional geniality and restraint, the story of a man reading his way to the last exit and the recurrent half-light of personal reference makes the book very moving and fine because it’s such a quiet, oblique, unselfconscious self-portrait (SMH 5–6 September).

Another volume of memoir, James’s late poetry collected in Sentenced to Life, has been discussed under poetry; another book, Poetry Notebook (2014) collects his recent essays on the genre.

Footnotes

Notes

References

The bibliography for 2015 does not normally include references for book reviews or journals, and offers a selective listing of non-fiction. Those seeking further information in these categories should consult the following sources: Australian Book Review <www.australianbookreview.com.au>.

JASAL (Journal of the Association for the Study of Australian Literature) <http://openjournals.library.usyd.edu.au/index.php/JASAL/>.

AustLit: The Australian Literature Resource <http://www.austlit.edu.au/>.

Antipodes: A Global Journal of Australian/New Zealand Literature <http://www.australianliterature.org/Antipodes/>.

Australian Literary Studies <https://www.australianliterarystudies.com.au/>.

Adamson, Robert Net Needle: Poems 96pp Black Inc (Melbourne) Pb $22.99.

Beesley, Luke Jam Sticky Vision 72pp Giramondo (Sydney) Pb $24.00.

Brooks, David Open House 168pp Univ of Queensland (Brisbane) Pb $24.95.

Caesar, Adrian Dark Cupboards New Rooms 78pp Shoestring (Nottingham, UK) Pb $22.99.

10.

Carruthers, A. J. Axis, Book I: “Areal” 204pp Vagabond (Sydney) Pb $25.00.

11.

Cronin, M. T. C. The Law of Poetry 255pp Puncher & Wattmann (Sydney) Pb $29.95.

12.

Dougan, Lucy The Guardians 76pp Giramondo (Sydney) Pb $24.00.

13.

Edwards, Chris After Naptime 32pp Vagabond (Sydney) Pb $22.50.

14.

Farrell, Michael Cocky’s Joy 95pp Giramondo (Sydney) Pb $24.00.

15.

Gibson, Ross Stone Grown Cold 64pp Cordite (Melbourne) Pb $20.00.

16.

Goldsworthy, Peter The Rise of the Machines and Other Love Poems 64pp Pitt Street Poetry (Sydney) Pb $28.00.

17.

Grant, Jamie Glass on the Chimney 160pp Hardie Grant (Melbourne) Hb $24.99.

18.

Greene, Dennis Here Be Dragons 86pp Puncher & Wattmann (Sydney) Pb $25.00.

19.

Harkin, Natalie Dirty Words 56pp Cordite (Melbourne) Pb $20.00.

20.

Harrison, Martin Happiness 112pp Univ of WA (Perth) Pb $24.99.

21.

Hart, Libby Wild 65pp Pitt Street Poetry (Sydney) Pb $25.00.

22.

Hawke, John Aurelia 52pp Cordite (Melbourne) Pb $20.00.

23.

Holland-Batt, Sarah The Hazards 112pp Univ of Queensland (Brisbane) Pb $24.95.

24.

Jackson, Andy Immune Systems 56pp Transit Lounge (Melbourne) Pb $23.95.

25.

James, Clive Sentenced to Life 60pp Picador (Sydney) Hb $32.99.

26.

Jones, Evan Selected Poems 208pp Grand Parade Poets (Wollongong, NSW) Pb $26.95.

27.

Jones, Jill Breaking the Days 57pp Whitmore (Sydney) Pb $22.95.

28.

Kent, Jean The Hour of Silvered Mullet 89pp Pitt Street Poetry (Sydney) Pb $28.00.

29.

Kinsella, John Sack 126pp Fremantle (Fremantle, WA) Pb $24.99.

30.

Lawson, Elizabeth Penelope’s Chairs 75pp Puncher & Wattmann (Sydney) Pb $25.00.

31.

Loney, Alan Crankhandle 56pp Cordite (Melbourne) Pb $20.00.

32.

Maiden, Jennifer Drones and Phantoms 80pp Giramondo (Sydney) Pb $24.00.

33.

Maling, Caitlin Conversations I’ve Never Had 81pp Fremantle (Fremantle, WA) Pb $24.99.

34.

Murray, Les Waiting for the Past 81pp Black Inc (Melbourne) Hb $24.99.

35.

O’Hara, Mervyn Songs of Darlinghurst 104pp Momento Pro (Chippendale, NSW) Hb $25.00.

36.

Pattinson, Jillian Babel Fish 75pp Puncher & Wattmann (Sydney) Pb $25.00.

37.

Ryan, Tracy Hoard 50pp Whitmore (Sydney) Pb $22.95.

38.

Skovron, Alex Towards the Equator 306pp Puncher & Wattmann (Sydney) Pb $29.99.

39.

Upton, John Embracing the Razor 97pp Puncher & Wattmann (Sydney) Pb $25.00.

40.

Wattison, Meredith Terra Bravura 140pp Puncher & Wattmann (Sydney) Pb $25.00.

41.

West, Simon The Ladder 54pp Puncher & Wattmann (Sydney) Pb $25.00.

42.

Wilkinson, Jessica Suite for Percy Grainger 136pp Vagabond (Sydney) Pb $25.00.

43.

Alberts, Jada Brothers Wreck 42pp Currency (Sydney) [2014] Pb $19.99.

44.

Betzien, Angela Mortido 91pp Currency (Sydney) Pb $19.99.

45.

Brookman, Kit A Rabbit for Kim Jong-Il 49pp Currency (Sydney) Pb $19.99.

46.

Carroll, Kieran The Truth Is Longer than a Lie 90pp Black Pepper (Melbourne) Pb $23.00.

47.

Coopes, Rachael and Wayne Blair Sugarland 84pp Playlab (Brisbane) [2014] Pb $23.95.

48.

Davis, Jenny and Diane Pope Sarah of Enderslea Farm 139pp Hesperian (Perth) Pb $40.00.

49.

Fennessy, Aidan House on the Lake 47pp Currency (Sydney) [2014] Pb $19.99.

50.

Flack, Eamon (adaptor) and Anton Chekhov Ivanov 64pp Currency (Sydney) Pb $19.99.

51.

Gow, Michael Once in Royal David’s City 41pp Currency (Sydney) [2014] Pb $19.99.

52.

Kruckemeyer, Finegan The Violent Outburst That Drew Me to You 36pp Currency (Sydney) [2014] Pb $19.99.

53.

Lui, Nakkiah Kill the Messenger 106pp Currency (Sydney) [2014] Pb $19.99.

54.

Mueller, Ross A Town Named War Boy 47pp Currency (Sydney) Pb $19.99.

55.

Mulvany, Kate Masquerade 67pp Currency (Sydney) Pb $19.99.

56.

Page, Geoff Cara Carissima 63pp Picaro (Sydney) Pb $20.00.

57.

Summers, Kevin Patient 12 36pp Currency (Sydney) [2014] Pb $19.99.

58.

Whittet, Matthew Seventeen 31pp Currency (Sydney) Pb $19.99.

59.

Adelaide, Debra The Women’s Pages 293pp Picador (Sydney) Pb $29.99.

60.

Allinson, Miles Fever of Animals 256pp Scribe (Melbourne) Pb $29.99 [debut novel].

61.

Armand, Louis Abacus 220pp Vagabond (Sydney) Pb $24.95.

62.

Bennett Daylight, Tegan Six Bedrooms 240pp Random House (Sydney) Pb $29.99 [stories].

63.

Birch, Tony Ghost River 304pp Univ of Queensland (Brisbane) Pb $29.95.

64.

Bird, Carmel My Hearts Are Your Hearts 228pp Spineless Wonders (Sydney) Pb $27.99 [stories].

65.

Bishop, Stephanie The Other Side of the World 352pp Hachette Australia (Sydney) Pb $29.99.

66.

Brooks, Geraldine The Secret Chord 400pp Hachette Australia (Sydney) Hb $39.99.

67.

Butterworth, Dido The Mystery of the Venus Island Fetish 283pp Text (Melbourne) Pb $29.99.

68.

Bradley, James Clade 239pp Hamish Hamilton (Melbourne) Pb $32.99.

69.

Cadwallader, Robyn The Anchoress 312pp Fourth Estate (Sydney) Pb $29.99.

70.

Cameron, Anson The Last Pulse 273pp Vintage (Sydney) Pb $29.99.

71.

Capp, Fiona Gotland 295pp Fourth Estate (Sydney) [2014] Pb $24.99.

72.

Carroll, Steven Forever Young 342pp Fourth Estate (Sydney) Pb $29.95.

73.

Daisley, Stephen Coming Rain 270pp Text (Melbourne) Pb $29.99.

74.

Davies, Julian Crow Mellow 384pp Finlay Lloyd (Sydney) [2014] Pb $28.00.

75.

Day, Gregory Archipelago of Souls 374pp Picador (Sydney) Hb $32.99.

76.

De Kretser, Michelle Springtime: A Ghost Story 92pp Allen & Unwin (Sydney) Hb $14.99.

77.

Disher, Gary Bitter Wash Road 325pp Text (Melbourne) [2014] Pb $29.99.

78.

Docker, Peter Sweet One 316pp Fremantle (Fremantle, WA) [2014] Pb $29.99.

79.

Evans, Christine Cloudless: A Novel in Verse 180pp Univ of WA (Perth) Pb $24.99.

80.

Finn, S. J. Down to the River 272pp Sleepers (Melbourne) Pb $24.95.

81.

Forsyth, Kate The Wild Girl 539pp Vintage (Sydney) [2014] Pb $32.95.

82.

French, Jackie To Love a Sunburnt Country 466pp Angus & Robertson (Sydney) Pb $29.99 [young adult].

83.

Gíslason, Kári The Ash Burner 229pp Univ of Queensland (Brisbane) Pb $29.95 [debut novel].

84.

Gorton, Lisa The Life of Houses 224pp Giramondo (Sydney) Pb $26.95.

85.

Gould, Alan The Poet’s Stairwell: A Picaresque Novel 326pp Black Pepper (Melbourne) Pb $27.99.

86.

Halligan, Marion Goodbye Sweetheart 304pp Allen & Unwin (Sydney) Pb $24.95.

87.

Harrison, Jane Becoming Kirrali Lewis 130pp Magabala Books (Broome, WA) Pb $19.95.

88.

Harrower, Elizabeth A Few Days in the Country and Other Stories 256pp Text (Melbourne) Hb $29.95 Pb $22.99 [stories].

89.

Hartnett, Sonya Golden Boys 238pp Penguin (Melbourne) [2014] Pb $29.99.

90.

Hayes, Antonia Relativity 356pp Viking (Melbourne) Pb $32.99 [debut novel].

91.

Henshaw, Mark The Snow Kimono 396pp Text (Melbourne) [2014] Pb $29.99 [Winner of NSW Premier’s Award].

92.

Ireland, David “The World Repair Video Game” Island 140–144 [serialized novel].

93.

Johnson, Susan The Landing 225pp Allen & Unwin (Sydney) Pb $29.99 [novel].

94.

Jones, Gail A Guide to Berlin 272pp Vintage (Sydney) Pb $32.99.

95.

Jones, Myfanwy Leap 336pp Allen & Unwin (Sydney) Pb $26.99.

96.

Jones, Rod The Mothers 334pp Text (Melbourne) Pb $29.99.

97.

Juchau, Mireille The World without Us 293pp Bloomsbury (London) Pb $29.99.

98.

Keneally, Tom Napoleon’s Last Island 426pp Vintage (Sydney) Pb $32.95 [novel].

99.

Kinsella, John Crow’s Breath 208pp Transit Lounge (Melbourne) Pb $25.95 [stories].

100.

Kinsella, John Tide 237pp Transit Lounge (Melbourne) [2014] Pb $29.95.

101.

Knox, Malcolm The Wonder Lover 374pp Allen & Unwin (Sydney) Pb $32.99.

102.

Komesaroff, Paul Riding a Crocodile: A Physician’s Tale 357pp Univ of WA (Perth) [2014] Pb $26.99.

103.

Lee, Christopher Seasons of War: A Novel 144pp Viking (Melbourne) Hb $24.99.

104.

Lohrey, Amanda A Short History of Richard Kline 259pp Black Inc (Melbourne) Pb $29.99.

105.

London, Joan The Golden Age 256pp Vintage (Sydney) [2014] Pb $32.99.

106.

Maitland, Barry Crucifixion Creek: The Belltree Trilogy I Text (Melbourne) Pb $29.99.

107.

Midalia, Susan Feet to the Stars and Other Stories 180pp Univ of WA (Perth) Pb $24.99 [stories].

108.

Middleton, Murray When There’s Nowhere Else to Run 243pp Allen & Unwin (Sydney) Pb $27.99 [stories; 2015 Vogel Prize winner].

109.

Miller, Alex Coal Creek 292pp Allen & Unwin (Sydney) [2014] Pb $29.99.

110.

Moriarty, Cass The Promise Seed 291pp Univ of Queensland (Brisbane) Pb $29.95 [novel].

111.

Newton, P.M. Beams Falling 328pp Viking (Melbourne) [2014] Pb $29.99.

112.

O’Reilly, Paddy Peripheral Vision 208pp Univ of Queensland (Brisbane) Pb $19.95 [stories].

113.

O’Reilly, Paddy The Wonders 301pp Affirm (Melbourne) [2014] Pb $29.99.

114.

Orr, Stephen The Hands: An Australian Pastoral 368pp Wakefield (Adelaide) Pb $29.95.

115.

Oswald, Debra Useful 316pp Viking (Melbourne) Pb $32.99.

116.

Piper, Christine After Darkness 297pp Allen & Unwin (Sydney) [2014] Pb $27.99 [2014 Vogel winner].

117.

Price, Sandra Leigh The Bird’s Child 384pp HarperCollins (Sydney) Pb $32.99.

118.

Pung, Alice Laurinda 352pp Black Inc (Melbourne) [2014] Pb $19.95 [debut novel, young adult].

119.

Rawson, Jane Formaldehyde 179pp Xoum (Sydney) Pb $19.95 [novel].

120.

Robinson, Alice Anchor Point 263pp Affirm (Melbourne) Pb $24.99.

121.

Robotham, Michael Watching You 441pp Sphere (London) [2014] Pb $29.99.

122.

Shakespeare, Nicholas Oddfellows 121pp Vintage (Sydney) Pb $14.99.

123.

Toltz, Steve Quicksand 435pp Hamish Hamilton (Melbourne) Pb $32.99.

124.

Treloar, Lucy Salt Creek 416pp Picador (Sydney) Pb $29.99 [novel].

125.

Tsiolkas, Christos.

126.

Merciless Gods 329pp Allen & Unwin (Sydney) [2014] Pb $32.99 [stories].

127.

Turner, Ann The Lost Swimmer 346pp Simon & Schuster (Sydney) Pb $29.99.

128.

Twohig, Peter The Torch 459pp Fourth Estate (Sydney) Pb $29.99.

129.

Ulman, Abigail Hot Little Hands 304pp Hamish Hamilton (Melbourne) Pb $29.99 [stories].

130.

Whish-Wilson, David Zero at the Bone 288pp Viking (Sydney) [2014] Pb $29.99.

131.

Winton, Tim Eyrie 424pp Hamish Hamilton (Melbourne) [2014] Hb $45.00.

132.

Wood, Charlotte The Natural Way of Things 320pp Allen & Unwin (Sydney) Pb $29.99 [novel].

133.

Wooller, Geraldine Trio 270pp Transit Lounge (Melbourne) Pb $27.99 [novel].

134.

Appointment Northwest Peter Skrzynecki 406pp Five Senses (Sydney) [2014] Pb $24.95.

135.

Beyond Black and White: My Life in Music Roger Woodward 609pp ABC Books (Sydney) Hb $59.99.

136.

Bloodhound: Searching for My Father Ramona Koval 272pp Text (Melbourne) Pb $32.99.

137.

The Boatman: An Indian Love Story John Burbidge 272pp Transit Lounge (Melbourne) Pb $29.95.

138.

Comrade Ambassador: Whitlam’s Beijing Envoy Stephen Fitzgerald 272pp Melbourne Univ (Melbourne) Pb $34.99.

139.

Cut a Long Story Short Peter Lach-Newinsky 161pp Puncher & Wattmann (Sydney) Pb $25.00.

140.

Eat First, Talk Later: A Memoir of Food, Family and Home Beth Yahp 350pp Vintage (Sydney) Pb $34.99.

141.

Fair Game: A Tasmanian Memoir Carmel Bird 62pp Finlay Lloyd (Sydney) Pb $10.00.

142.

First Things First: Selected Letters of Kate Llewellyn 1977–2004 Kate Llewellyn 320pp Wakefield (Adelaide) Pb $29.95.

143.

Hello, Beautiful!: Scenes from a Life Hannie Rayson 255pp Text (Melbourne) Pb $29.95.

144.

Idle Talk: Letters 1960–1964 Gwen Harwood 200pp Brandl & Schlesinger (Sydney) Pb $29.95.

145.

Island Home: A Landscape Memoir Tim Winton 240pp Hamish Hamilton (Melbourne) Hb $39.99.

146.

Old Man’s Story: The Last Thoughts of Kakadu Elder Bill Neidjie Bill Neidjie and Mark Lang 240pp Aboriginal Studies (Canberra) Pb $34.95.

147.

Patrick Tjungurrayi: Beyond Borders Patrick Tjungurrayi and John Carty 130pp Univ of WA (Perth) Hb $59.99.

148.

Reckoning: A Memoir Magda Szubanski 374pp Text (Melbourne) Hb $49.99.

149.

Second Half First Drusilla Modjeska 400pp Knopf (Sydney) Hb $39.99.

150.

The Simplest Words: A Storyteller’s Journey Alex Miller 304pp Allen and Unwin (Sydney) Hb $35.00.

151.

Something for the Pain: A Memoir of the Turf Gerald Murnane 288pp Text (Melbourne) Pb $29.99.

152.

Under Cover: Adventures in the Art of Editing Craig Munro 256pp Scribe (Melbourne) Pb $29.95.

153.

We Are Here Cat Thao Nguyen 272pp Allen & Unwin (Sydney) Pb $24.95.

154.

The Best Australian Essays 2014 ed Robert Manne 324pp Black Inc (Melbourne) [2014] Pb $29.99.

155.

The Best Australian Essays 2015 ed Geordie Williamson 352pp Black Inc (Melbourne) Pb $29.99.

156.

The Best Australian Poems 2014 ed Geoff Page 209pp Black Inc (Melbourne) [2014] Pb $24.99.

157.

The Best Australian Poems 2015 ed Geoff Page 169pp Black Inc (Melbourne) Pb $24.99.

158.

The Best Australian Stories 2014 ed Amanda Lohrey 246pp Black Inc (Melbourne) [2014] Pb $29.99.

159.

The Best Australian Stories 2015 ed Amanda Lohrey 226pp Black Inc (Melbourne) Pb $29.99.

160.

Breaking Beauty ed Lynette Washington 228pp MidnightSun (Adelaide) Pb $24.99 [stories by emerging and established writers].

161.

The Sleepers Almanac X ed Zoe Dattner and Louise Swinn 270pp Sleepers (Melbourne) Pb $24.95.

162.

“Australia and the Post-colonial Novel” Helen Andrews Quadrant 59(10) pp70–73.

163.

“Australia in the Salman Rushdie Archive” Vijay Mishra JASAL 14(3).

164.

“Australian Film in the Australian Literature Classroom” Theodore F. Sheckels Antipodes 29(1) pp105–115.

165.

“Australian Literature in Serbian Translation” Natasa Kampmark JASAL 14(1) [2014].

166.

“The BlackWords Symposium: The Past, Present, and Future of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Literature” Peter Minter and Kerry Kilner JASAL 14(3) [2014].

167.

“BlackWords: Writers on Identity” Anita Heiss JASAL 14(3) [2014].

168.

Contemporary Australian Literature: A World Not Dead Yet Nicholas Birns 252pp Sydney Univ (Sydney) Pb $30.00.

169.

“A Continuity of Country: Enlivenment in a Live Evocation of Place” Helen Ramoutsaki JASAL 14(3) [2014].

170.

“Copyright Law, Readers and Authors in Colonial Australia” Sarah Ailwood and Maree Sainsbury JASAL 14(3) [2014].

171.

“‘Country’ in Australian Contemporary Verse Novels” Linda Weste JASAL 14(3) [2014].

172.

“The Corpus of the Continent: Embodiments of Australia in World Literature” Vilashini Cooppan JASAL 15(3).

173.

“Ecologies of the Beachcomber in Colonial Australian Literature” Rachael Weaver JASAL 15(2).

174.

“Forgotten Books and Local Readers: Popular Fiction in the Library at the Turn of the Twentieth Century” Julieanne Lamond Australian Literary Studies 29(3) pp87–100 [2014].

175.

“Gothic Splendors: Recent Tasmanian Historical Fiction” Peter Pierce Island 142 pp22–29.

176.

“Home Was Where the Hearth Is: Fire, Destruction, and Displacement in Nineteenth-Century Settler Narratives” Grace Moore Antipodes 29(1) pp29–42.

177.

“In Momentum — Writing Place” Catherine Noske Westerly 60(1) pp65–72.

178.

“Is Australian Literature Global Enough?” Nicholas Birns JASAL 15(3).

179.

“Journey of a Lifetime: From the Sticks to the State Library — An Aboriginal Editor’s Story” Linda McBride-Yuke JASAL 14(3) [2014].

180.

“Juxtaposing Australian and Canadian Writing” Fiona Polack JASAL 15(3).

181.

Latest Readings Clive James 192pp Yale Univ (New Haven) Hb $29.95.

182.

“Literary Journals and Literary Aesthetics in Early Post-Federation Australia” Ken Gelder and Rachael Weaver JASAL 14(5) [2014].

183.

“Lost Wagga Wagga” Keri Glastonbury JASAL 14(3) [2014].

184.

“Making an Expedition of Herself: Lady Jane Franklin as Queen of the Tasmanian Extinction Narrative” Amanda Johnson JASAL 14(5) [2014].

185.

“National Literatures, Scale and the Problem of the World” Robert Dixon JASAL 15(3).

186.

“Peek-a Boo Australia” Bruce Pascoe JASAL 14(3) [2014].

187.

“Place and Property in Post-Mabo Fiction by Dorothy Hewett, Alex Miller and Andrew McGahan” Kieran Dolin JASAL 14(3) [2014].

188.

“The Poetics of (Re)Mapping Archives: Memory in the Blood” Natalie Harkin JASAL 14(3) [2014].

189.

Poetry Notebook Clive James 192pp Picador (Sydney) Hb $32.99 [2014].

190.

“Refiguring the Silence of Australian Landscapes” Nicholas Kankahainen JASAL 15(1).

191.

“‘A Reading People?’: Global Knowledge Networks and Two Australian Societies of the 1820s” Jon Mee Australian Literary Studies 29(3) [2014] pp74–86.

192.

“Respecting Protocols for Representing Aboriginal Cultures” Jared Thomas JASAL 14(3) [2014].

193.

“Rescuing Reading: Strategies for Arresting the Decline of Reading in Western Australian Newspapers Between the Wars” Patrick Buckridge Australian Literary Studies 29(3) [2014] pp101–115.

194.

“Scenes of Reading: Australia–Canada–Australia” Sneja Gunew JASAL 15(3).

195.

“Sovereign Bodies of Feeling — ‘Making Sense’ of Country” Alison Ravenscroft JASAL 14(3) [2014].

196.

“Towards a Multilingual National Literature: The Tung Wah Times and the Origins of Chinese Australian Writing” Zhong Huang and Wenche Ommundsen JASAL 15(3).

197.

“Tracking our Country in Settler Literature” Jeanine Leane JASAL 14(3) [2014].

198.

“‘To Be Continued’: A World of Serial Fiction in Australian Newspapers” Katherine Bode Island 141 pp63–67.

199.

“Transnationalism and National Literatures: The Australian Case” Paul Giles JASAL 15(3).

200.

“The Uniqueness of the BlackWords Resource: Memoir of an Indexer” Irene Howe JASAL 14(3) [2014].

201.

“Worlds Within: Hayes Gordon, Zika Nester, Henri Szeps and the Transformations of Australian Theatre” Anne Pender JASAL 15(3).

202.

“Writing Forward, Writing Back, Writing Black — Working Process and Work-in-Progress” Gus Worby, Simone Ulalka Tur and Faye Rosas Blanch JASAL 14(3) [2014].

203.

“Writing Country: Lightning, Agony, and Vertigo” Brian Castro JASAL 14(3) [2014].

204.

Writing Australian Unsettlement: Modes of Poetic Invention 1796–1945 Michael Farrell 223pp Palgrave Macmillan (New York) Hb $124.95.

205.

Astley, Thea Thea Astley: Inventing Her Own Weather Karen Lamb 360pp Univ of Queensland (Brisbane) Pb $34.95 [critical biography].

206.

Beaver, Bruce “Diminished but Never Dismissed: The Confessional Poetry of Sylvia Plath and Bruce Beaver” Tegan Schetrumpf Antipodes 29(1) pp17–127.

207.

Brady, E. J. “Colonial Modernity, Native Species and E. J. Brady’s ‘The Friar-Bird’s Sermon: An Australian Fable’” Ken Gelder JASAL 15(2).

208.

Brady, Veronica “Veronica Brady (1929–2015)” David Brooks Southerly 75(2) pp9–16.

209.

Brennan, Christopher “The Poet in Her Past: Eleanor Dark and Christopher Brennan” Helen O’Reilly Southerly 75(2) pp217–223.

210.

Campbell, Justine “‘Beauty Tigress Queen’: Staging the Thylacine in a Theatre of Species” Denise Varney JASAL 15(2).

211.

Carey, Peter “Must Australia Always Be Imaginary?: Cartography as Creation in Peter Carey’s ‘Do You Love Me’” Claire Corbett Antipodes 29(1) pp43–54.

212.

Carey, Peter “Mythology, History, and Truth: Teaching Peter Carey’s True History of the Kelly Gang” Nathanael O’Reilly Antipodes 29(1) pp71–81.

213.

Carter, David [Review article on Always Almost Modern: Australian Print Cultures and Modernity] Brigid Rooney Southerly 75(1) pp174–181.

214.

Castro, Brian “Translating Fragments: Disorientation in Brian Castro’s Shanghai Dancing” Wang Guanglin Antipodes 29(1) pp129–143.

215.

Chauncy, Nan “Relationships to the Bush in Nan Chauncy’s Early Novels for Children” Susan Sheridan and Emma Maguire JASAL 14(3) [2014].

216.

Clancy, Laurie “A Memory from the Agent Tim Curnow” JASAL 14(3) [2014].

217.

Clancy, Laurie “Clancy Departs Dog Eat Bone World: Richard Freadman Remembers Laurie Clancy” Richard Freadman JASAL 14(4) [2014].

218.

Clancy, Laurie “Clancy the Teacher” [various authors] JASAL 14(4) [2014].

219.

Clancy, Laurie “‘Everything is visible’: Considering Laurie Clancy’s Perfect Love” Hermina Burns JASAL 14(4) [2014].

220.

Clancy, Laurie “The Last Romantic: Laurie Clancy’s Nabokov” Stephen Knight JASAL 14(4) [2014].

221.

Clancy, Laurie “Laurie Clancy as Novelist of the Secular City” John McLaren JASAL 14(4) [2014].

222.

Clancy, Laurie “A Memory from the Agent” Tim Curnow JASAL 14(3) [2014].

223.

Clancy, Laurie “Playing a Straight Bat: Laurie Clancy as Critic” John Barnes JASAL 14(4) [2014].

224.

Clancy, Laurie “Remembering Laurie Clancy” Susan Ballyn JASAL 14(4) [2014].

225.

Clancy, Laurie “The Short Stories of Laurie Clancy” Peter Pierce JASAL 14(4) [2014].

226.

Clancy, Laurie “This Was a Man” Brian Matthews JASAL 14(4) [2014].

227.

Clancy, Laurie “The When, Where, Why and How of the Melbourne Partisan Magazine” John Timlin JASAL 14(4) [2014].

228.

Clarke, Marcus Wild Bleak Bohemia: Marcus Clarke, Adam Lindsay Gordon and Henry Kendall (A Documentary) Michael Wilding 580pp Australian Scholarly (Melbourne, 2014) Pb $39.95.

229.

Clarke, Marcus “Marcus Clarke, Gerard Manley Hopkins and Cyril Hopkins” Laurie Hergenhan Australian Literary Studies 29(4) pp87–99 [2014].

230.

Clift, Charmian “Australians in Aspic: Picturing Charmian Clift’s and George Johnston’s Expatriation” Tanya Dalziell and Paul Genoni JASAL 15(3).

231.

Coetzee, J. M. J. M. Coetzee and the Life of Writing: Face-to-Face with Time David Attwell 272pp Text (Melbourne) Pb $32.99.

232.

Dark, Eleanor [see Brennan, Christopher, this section].

233.

Davis, Jack “Spinning The Dreamers: Jack Davis and the Drama of Assimilation” Tony Hughes-d’Aeth Westerly 60(1) pp24–39.

234.

de Boos, Charles Edward Augustus “Charles Edward Augustus de Boos, 1819–1900: His Life, Work, and Writing” Peter Crabb JASAL 14(3) [2014].

235.

Drake-Brockman, Henrietta and Ernestine Hill “A ‘Grim and Fascinating’ Land of Opportunity: The Walkabout Women and Australia” Robyn Greaves JASAL 14(5) [2014].

236.

Duggan, Laurie “Anthropologist of Space: The Poetics of Representation in Laurie Duggan’s Crab & Winkle” Cameron Russell Lowe JASAL 14(5) [2014].

237.

Elliott, Sumner Locke “‘But even memory is fiction’: The (fictional) Life and (self) Writing of Sumner Locke Elliott” Shaun Bell Southerly 75(2) pp172–192.

238.

Facey, Albert “Wounded Storyteller: Revisiting Albert Facey’s Fortunate Life” Ffion Murphy and Richard Nile Westerly 60(2) pp87–100.

239.

Fagan, Kate “‘Aesthetics in Welcome Crisis’: Kate Fagan’s The Long Moment as New-Lyricist, Post-Romantic, Transversal, Post-Language Poetry” Gabrielle Dixon-Ritchie Southerly 75(1) pp153–171.

240.

Fernández, Ruben “El Contestador Australiano and the Transnational Flows of Australian Writing in Spanish” Michael Jacklin JASAL 15(3).

241.

Flanagan, Richard “Developing Magical Realism’s Irony in Gould’s Book of Fish” Ben Holgate JASAL 14(5) [2014].

242.

Flanagan, Richard “Extinction Discourse in Wanting and Doctor Wooreddy’s Prescription for Enduring the Ending of the World Rohan Wilson Antipodes 29(1) pp5–20.

243.

Furphy, Joseph “More ‘Ignorance-Shifting’: Supplementary Annotations to the Second Annotated Edition of Joseph Furphy’s Such Is Life” Peter Hayes JASAL 14(3) [2014].

244.

Gibson, Ross “Seeing the Cosmos: Ross Gibson’s ‘Simultaneous Living Map’” Catherine Noske JASAL 15(3).

245.

Glaskin, Gerald “The Writing and Publishing of Australia’s First Gay Novel” Jeremy Fisher Australian Literary Studies 29(4) pp62–72 [2014].

246.

Gordon, Adam Lindsay [see Clarke, Marcus, this section].

247.

Grenville, Kate “Cannibalism and Colonialism: Lilian’s Story and (White) Women’s Belonging” Laura Deane JASAL 14(3) [2014].

248.

Grenville, Kate “Reading Groups and Reconciliation: Kate Grenville’s The Secret River and the Ordinary Reader” Maggie Nolan and Robert Clarke Australian Literary Studies 29(4) [2014] pp19–35.

249.

Gwynne, Phillip “Traversing the Unfamiliar: German Translations of Aboriginality in James Vance Marshall’s The Children and Phillip Gwynne’s Deadly Unna? and Nukkin Ya” Leah Gerber JASAL 14(1) [2014].

250.

Hamilton, Sarah [see Campbell, Justine, this section].

251.

Harford, Lesbia [Review article on Collected Poems: Lesbia Harford] Bonny Cassidy Southerly 75(2) pp280–289.

252.

Harpur, Charles “Representations of ‘The Bush’ in the Poetry of Charles Harpur” Elizabeth Webby JASAL 14(3) [2014].

253.

Hazzard, Shirley “‘I think you’re my wife’”: Translation, Marriage, and the Literary Lives of Shirley Hazzard and Francis Steegmuller” Brigitta Olubas Southerly 75(2) pp73–87.

254.

Heiss, Anita “‘The Pretty and the Political Didn’t Seem to Blend Well’: Reconciling Competing Ideological Imperatives in Anita Heiss’ Chick Lit” Imogen Louise Mathew JASAL 15(3).

255.

Hill, Ernestine [see Drake-Brockman, Henrietta]

256.

Hodgins, Philip “Country Escaping Line in the Poetry of Philip Hodgins” Stuart Cooke JASAL 14(3).

257.

Hooper, Chloe “‘Why raise them to die so young?’: The Aesthetics of Fatalism in The Tall Man” Jane Stenning JASAL 14(3) [2014].

258.

Hospital, Janette Turner “Of Frames and Wonders: Translation and Transnationalism in the Work of Janette Turner Hospital” Jessica Trevitt JASAL 14(1) [2014].

259.

Hudson, Flexmore “Cosmopolitan Jindyworobak: Flexmore Hudson, Nationalism and World-Mindedness” Jayne Regan JASAL 15(3).

260.

Ireland, David “The Gift of David Ireland: The Glass Canoe” Malcolm Knox Island 143 pp28–37.

261.

Jarrar, Nada “Exile, Return, and Nationalism in A Goodland” Luma Balaa Antipodes 29(1) pp91–104.

262.

Johnson, Colin “Extinction Discourse in Wanting and Doctor Wooreddy’s Prescription for Enduring the Ending of the World Rohan Wilson Antipodes 29(1) pp5–20.

263.

Johnston, George [see Clift, Charmian, this section].

264.

Jolley, Elizabeth “Space and Language in Mr Scobie’s Riddle: Translating Displacement into Italian” Anna Gadd JASAL 14(1) [2014]

265.

Jolley, Elizabeth “Mute Eloquence: Elizabeth Jolley’s The Well as Encrypted Melodrama” Monique Rooney JASAL 15(1).

266.

Jones, Jill “Beyond Generation Green: Jill Jones and the Ecopoetic Process” Caroline Williamson JASAL 14(3).

267.

Kendall, Henry [see Clarke, Marcus, this section].

268.

Keneally, Thomas Interestingly Enough: The Life of Tom Keneally Stephany Evens Steggall 408pp Nero (Melbourne) Hb $49.99

269.

Kinsella, John “Eclogue Failure or Success: The Collaborative Activism of Poetry” John Kinsella and Charmaine Papertalk-Green Southerly 75(2) pp92–118.

270.

Langley, Eve “The Pea-pickers: An Introduction” Lucy Treep Westerly 60(2) pp106–113.

271.

Lazaroo, Simone “A ‘Bay of Whispers’: Seascape in Simone Lazaroo’s The Australian Fiancé” Rosalind McFarlane Antipodes 29(1) pp163–173.

272.

Le, Nam “‘…An Asian Dummy with an Aussie Voice’: Ventriloquism and Authenticity in Nam Le’s The Boat and Tim Winton’s The Turning” Lachlan Brown JASAL 14(3) [2014].

273.

Leane, Jeanine “‘Look what they done to this ground, girl!’: Country and Identity in Jeanine Leane’s Purple Threads” Helena Kadmos JASAL 14(3) [2014].

274.

“Malley, Ern” “Ern Malley, Wendy Cope and the Poetic Muse” John Whitworth Quadrant 59(3) pp86–87.

275.

Malouf, David “Appreciating David Malouf as Poet” James Tulip JASAL 14(1) [2014].

276.

Malouf, David “‘As if my bones had been changed into clouds’: Queer Epiphanies in David Malouf’s Fiction” Damien Barlow JASAL 14(1) [2014].

277.

Malouf, David “Closure, Completion and Memory in Harland’s Half Acre: Phil’s Story” Carolyn Masel JASAL 14(1) [2014].

278.

Malouf, David “David Malouf and the Poetics of Possibility” Bill Ashcroft JASAL 14(1) [2014].

279.

Malouf, David “David Malouf at Eighty” Ihab Hassan JASAL 14(1) [2014].

280.

Malouf, David “David Malouf’s Remembering Babylon as a Reconsideration of Pastoral Idealisation” Clare Archer-Lean JASAL 14(1) [2014].

281.

Malouf, David “David Malouf: The Long Breath of the Young Writer” Yvonne Smith JASAL 14(1) [2014].

282.

Malouf, David “The Happy Life: Nice Work if You Can Get It” John Scheckter JASAL 14(1) [2014].

283.

Malouf, David “History as ‘Precarious Gift’: Harland’s Half-Acre and The Great World as Malouf’s Not-So-Historical Novels” Nicholas Birns JASAL 14(1) [2014].

284.

Malouf, David “In Conversation: David Malouf and Ivor Indyk” Ivor Indyk JASAL 14(1) [2014].

285.

Malouf, David “Metamorphic Malouf” Nicholas Jose JASAL 14(1) [2014].

286.

Malouf, David “‘Only We Humans Can Know’: David Malouf and War” Clare Rhoden JASAL 14(1) [2014].

287.

Malouf, David “Silence and Poetic Inwardness in the Writings of David Malouf” Dennis Haskell JASAL 14(1) [2014].

288.

Malouf, David “A World of Feeling: David Malouf and the Public Conversation” Kay Ferres JASAL 14(1) [2014].

289.

Malouf, David “‘We have come to the shores, and prepare to enter’: A Visual Tribute to David Malouf” Mandy Martin JASAL 14(1) [2014].

290.

Marshall, James Vance “Traversing the Unfamiliar: German Translations of Aboriginality in James Vance Marshall’s The Children and Phillip Gwynne’s Deadly Unna? and Nukkin Ya” Leah Gerber JASAL 14(1) [2014].

291.

Martin, David “Words, Memories and Dreams: David Martin” Irmtraud Petersson Australian Literary Studies 29(4) pp77–86 [2014].

292.

McAuley, James “Writing from the Periphery: The Haunted Landscapes of James McAuley” Jean Page JASAL 14(1) [2014]

293.

McKie, Ronald “Late Retrospectives on Twentieth-Century Catastrophes: The Novels of Ronald McKie” Cheryl Taylor JASAL 14(5) [2014].

294.

Murnane, Gerald “Being-in-Landscape: A Heideggerian Reading of Landscape in Gerald Murnane’s Inland” Julian Murphy JASAL 14(3) [2014].

295.

Murnane, Gerald “Silence and Sound in the Sentences of Gerald Murnane’s A Million Windows” Anthony Uhlmann JASAL 15(1).

296.

Neidjie, Bill “Bill Neidjie’s Story about Feeling: Notes on its Themes and Philosophy” Philip Morrissey JASAL 15(2).

297.

Ng, Lillian “Reincarnation: The Orientalist Stereotypes” Amelberga Astuti JASAL 14(1) [2014].

298.

Olsson, Kristina “On Writing Boy, Lost” Kristina Olsson Southerly 75(2) pp55–70.

299.

Papertalk-Green, Charmaine [see Kinsella, John, this listing].

300.

Penton, Brian “D. H. Lawrence, Brian Penton and Australian Journalism” Robert Darroch Quadrant 59(1–2) pp88–90.

301.

Porter, Dorothy “The Influence of C. P. Cavafy” Joe Dolce Southerly 75(2) pp42–54 [interview].

302.

Praed, Rosa “‘I actually hear you think of me’: Voices, Mediums and Deafness in the Writing of Rosa Praed” Jessica White JASAL 15(1).

303.

Prichard, Katharine Susannah “Katharine Susannah Prichard, Henry Tate and the ‘Music of The Bush’” Graham Barwell Australian Literary Studies 29(4) [2014] pp100–103.

304.

Prichard, Katharine Susannah “‘The Memory of a Storm’: The Wild Oats of Han and the Childhood of Katharine Susannah Prichard, 1887 to 1895” Nathan Hobby Westerly 60(2) pp116–128.

305.

Pung, Alice “Unpolished Gem/Gemma impura: The Journey from Australia to Italy of Alice Pung’s Bestselling Novel” Adele D’Arcangelo JASAL 14(1) [2014].

306.

Scott, Kim “Finding a Place in Story: Kim Scott’s Writing and the Wirlomin Noongar Language and Stories Project” Natalie Quinlivan JASAL 14(3) [2014].

307.

Scott, Kim “Magical Realism and Irony’s ‘Edge’: Rereading Magical Realism and Kim Scott’s Benang” Maria Takolander JASAL 14(5) [2014].

308.

Scott, Kim “Shedding Clothes: Performing Cross-cultural Exchange through Costume and Writing in Kim Scott’s That Deadman Dance” Maggie Nolan Southerly 75(2) pp124–144.

309.

Stead, Christina “Christina Stead’s Poor Women of Sydney, Travelling into Our Times” Carole Ferrier JASAL 15(3).

310.

Stead, Christina “Hurts So Good: Masochism in Christina Stead’s The Man Who Loved Children” Theresa Holtby JASAL 14(5) [2014].

311.

Stead, Christina “Resisting Judgment in Christina Stead: Critical Writing of the 1980s” Ann Blake JASAL 14(4) [2014].

312.

Stead, Christina “Transitional Voices in Christina Stead’s Seven Poor Men of Sydney” Helen Groth JASAL 15(1).

313.

Stow, Randolph “Encountering ‘Magnificent Country’: Randolph Stow at Forrest River Mission, 1957 — A Photo Essay” Kate Leah Rendell Westerly 60(1) pp77–95.

314.

Stow, Randolph “The Englishness of Randolph Stow” Fiona Richards JASAL 14(5) [2014].

315.

Stow, Randolph “Fraught with Danger and Promise: A Reintroduction to Randolph Stow’s Tourmaline” Gabrielle Carey Island 142 pp57–60.

316.

Stow, Randolph “Heriot’s Ithaka: Soul, Country and the Possibility of Home in To The Islands” Bernadette Brennan JASAL 14(3) [2014].

317.

Stow, Randolph “Splendid Masculinity: The Wanderer in Voss and To the Islands” Kathleen M. Steele JASAL 14(5) [2014].

318.

Torrents, Salvador “Salvador Torrents and The Birth of ‘Crónica’ Writing in Australia” Catherine Helen Seaton JASAL 15(3).

319.

Tsiolkas, Christos “‘I turn up the volume and walk towards home’: Mapping the Soundscapes of Loaded” Joseph Cummins JASAL 15(1).

320.

Tsiolkas, Christos [Review article on Merciless Gods] Shaun Bell Southerly 75(1) pp195–203.

321.

Tsiolkas, Christos “Subaltern Cosmopolitanism: The Question of Hospitality in Christos Tsiolkas’ Dead Europe” Jessica Lane Stasko Brooks JASAL 15(3).

322.

White, Patrick “‘Are You for Magic?’ Patrick White and Camp” Peter Kirkpatrick Australian Literary Studies 29(4) pp1–18 [2014].

323.

White, Patrick “‘Greece — Patrick White’s Other Country’: Is Patrick White a Greek Author?” Shaun Bell JASAL 15(5) [2014].

324.

White, Patrick “Is Prowse’s Rectum a Grave?: Jouissance, Reparative Transnationalism and Patrick White’s The Twyborn Affair” Jackson Moore JASAL 15(3).

325.

White, Patrick “On Reading The Aunt’s Story by Patrick White” Fiona McFarlane Southerly 75(2) pp17–31.

326.

White, Patrick “Patrick White, Composer Manque: The Centrality of Music in White’s Artistic Aspiration” John Carmody Antipodes 29(1) pp153–161.

327.

White, Patrick “Patrick White’s Hungarian Connection” Nourit Melcer-Padon JASAL 15(3).

328.

White, Patrick “Splendid Masculinity: The Wanderer in Voss and To the Islands” Kathleen M. Steele JASAL 14(5) [2014].

329.

White, Patrick “White’s Brown Woman” Denise Varney Meanjin 74(4) pp11–12.

330.

Winton, Tim “Tim Winton’s Dirt Music: Sounding Country/Re-siting Place” Stephen Harris JASAL 15(1).

331.

Winton, Tim [see Le, Nam, this section].

332.

Witting, Amy “A Literary Biographical Exploration of the Transnational Literary Journeys of the Australian Writer Amy Witting and a Lithuanian Migrant Elena Jonaitis” Colleen Smee JASAL 14(1) [2014].

333.

Wood, Charlotte “Gardens of Empire, Eden, and Passion in Charlotte Wood’s The Submerged Cathedral” Duc Dau Australian Literary Studies 29(4) pp48–61 [2014].

334.

Wright, Alexis “The Law of Storytelling: The Hermeneutics of Relationality in Alexis Wright’s The Swan Book” Arnaud Barras JASAL 15(3).

335.

The Abyssinian Contortionist: Hope, Friendship and Other Circus Acts David Carlin 280pp UWA (Perth) Pb $29.99.

336.

A Forger’s Progress: The Life of Francis Greenway Alasdair McGregor 369pp NewSouth (Sydney) Hb $49.99.

337.

After This: Survivors of the Holocaust Speak Alice Nelson 252pp Fremantle (Fremantle, WA) Pb $24.95.

338.

ANZAC: The Unauthorised Biography Carolyn Holbrook 272pp NewSouth (Sydney) [2014] Pb $34.99.

339.

Australians, Volume 3: Flappers to Vietnam Thomas Keneally 675pp Allen & Unwin (Sydney) Hb $49.99.

340.

Banksia Lady: Celia Rosser, Botanical Artist Carolyn Landon 296pp Monash Univ (Melbourne) Pb $39.99.

341.

Battarbee and Namatjira Martin Edmond 341pp Giramondo (Sydney) Pb $29.95.

342.

Bauhaus on the Swan: Elise Blumann, an émigré Artist in Western Australia, 1938–1948 Sally Quin 160pp UWA (Perth) Pb $55.00.

343.

Bearing Witness: The Remarkable Life of Charles Bean, Australia’s Greatest War Correspondent Peter Rees 440pp Allen and Unwin (Sydney) Pb $32.99.

344.

Being There: Book 3 David Malouf 353pp Knopf (Sydney) Hb $29.99.

345.

Bert: The Story of Australia’s Favourite TV Star Graeme Blundell 376pp Hachette (Sydney) Hb $45.00 [biography of Bert Newton].

346.

Betsy and the Emperor: The True Story of Napoleon, a Pretty Girl, a Regency Rake and an Australian Colonial Misadventure Anne Whitehead 464pp Allen and Unwin (Sydney) Pb $32.99.

347.

Bill: The Life of William Dobell Scott Bevan 497pp Simon & Schuster (Sydney) Pb $35.00 [2014].

348.

Black Widow: The True Story of Australia’s First Serial Killer Carol Baxter 376pp Allen & Unwin (Sydney) Pb $29.95.

349.

Blockbuster: Fergus Hume and The Mystery of a Hansom Cab Lucy Sussex 398pp Text (Melbourne) Pb $32.99.

350.

Charles Bean Ross Coulthart 512pp HarperCollins (Sydney) Hb $45.00 [2014].

351.

Chasing Shadows: The Life & Death of Peter Roebuck Tim Lane and Elliot Cartledge 304pp Hardie Grant Egmont (Melbourne) Pb $29.99.

352.

Constance Stokes: Art and Life Lucilla Wyborn D’Abrera 234pp Hill House (Melbourne) Hb $95.00.

353.

Double-Act: The Remarkable Lives and Careers of Googie Withers and John McCallum Brian McFarlane 300pp Monash Univ (Melbourne) Pb $39.95.

354.

A Flower between the Cracks: A Memoir of Love, Hope and Disability Helen Sage 302pp Affirm (Melbourne) Pb $29.95.

355.

Ghost Wife: A Memoir of Love and Defiance Michelle Dicinoski 214pp Black Inc (Melbourne) Pb $24.99.

356.

Hell Bent: Australia’s Leap into the Great War Douglas Newton 352pp Scribe (Sydney) Pb $32.99.

357.

Henry & Banjo James Knight 415pp Hachette (Sydney) Hb $45 [popular biography of Henry Lawson and Banjo Paterson].

358.

Lost Relations: Fortunes of My Family in Australia’s Golden Age Graeme Davison 260pp Allen & Unwin (Sydney) Pb $32.99.

359.

Mannix Brenda Niall 464pp Text (Melbourne) Hb $50.00.

360.

Modern Love: The Lives of John and Sunday Reed Lesley Harding and Kendrah Morgan 401pp Miegunyah (Melbourne) Pb $45.00.

361.

One Life: My Mother’s Story Kate Grenville 224pp Text (Melbourne) Hb $29.95.

362.

Paul Keating: The Biography David Day 573pp Fourth Estate (Sydney) Hb $49.95.

363.

Penguin and the Lane Brothers: The Untold Story of a Publishing Revolution Stuart Kells 344pp Black Inc (Melbourne) Hb $39.99.

364.

Red Professor: The Cold War Life of Fred Rose Peter Monteath and Valerie Munt 400pp Wakefield (Adelaide) Pb $39.95.

365.

Santamaria: A Most Unusual Man Gerard Henderson 505pp Miegunyah (Melbourne) Hb $59.99.

366.

Sidney Nolan: A Life Nancy Underhill 480pp Sydney: NewSouth (Sydney) Hb $49.99.

367.

Solomon’s Noose: The True Story of Her Majesty’s Hangman of Hobart Steve Harris 336pp Melbourne Books (Melbourne) Pb $29.95.

368.

Thea Astley: Inventing Her Own Weather Karen Lamb 360pp Univ of Queensland (Brisbane) Pb $34.95.

369.

The Spectacle of Skill: Selected Writings of Robert Hughes Robert Hughes 688pp Knopf (New York) Hb $69.99.

370.

The Story of Australia’s People, Volume 1: The Rise and Fall of Ancient Australia Geoffrey Blainey 434pp Viking (Melbourne) Hb $49.99.

371.

A Theatre in My Mind: The Inside Story of Australian Radio Drama Reg James and James Aitchison 194pp Vivid (Fremantle, WA) Pb $29.95.

372.

Tom Roberts & The Art of Portraiture Julie Cotter 400pp Thames & Hudson (Melbourne) Hb $100.00.

373.

Warrior: A Legendary Leader’s Dramatic Life and Violent Death on the Colonial Frontier Libby Connors 280pp Allen & Unwin (Sydney) Pb $32.95.

374.

When This Thing Happened Michael McKernan 256pp Scribe (Melbourne) Pb $29.99.

375.

Why Australian Painting Matters Patrick McCaughey 376pp Miegunyah (Melbourne) Pb $49.99.

376.

Wild Bleak Bohemia: Marcus Clarke, Adam Lindsay Gordon and Henry Kendall (A Documentary) Michael Wilding 580pp Australian Scholarly (Melbourne) Pb $39.95 [2014].

377.

With Every Step: A Son’s Quest and a Father’s Promise Neil Cadigan 293pp Black Inc (Melbourne) Pb $29.99.