Cirrus@Austlit

' We're in the Arts West forum at the University of Melbourne on a freezing July evening and David Malouf is telling his audience that he has just re-read Johnno for the first time in more than 40 years: The parts of the book I like best are not about either of the central characters, but all the stuff about Brisbane. It really is a history of Brisbane [in the 1940s and 1950s] which had never been written, and it's an attempt to produce for readers all the detail of what it was like to live in that atmosphere, with that weather, and with that particular social structure. There is a huge amount of detail in the book and I treat that detail as if it were in a poem, so that there is something sensuously felt and emblematic of something larger. I think that's probably the most successful aspect of the book.' (Introduction)