'On the eve of the release of his directorial debut, Acute Misfortune, adapted from Erik Jensen’s book about artist Adam Cullen, Thomas M. Wright talks about how his reaction to Cullen turned from revulsion to deciding he was the perfect subject. “Adam seemed to stand for so many things that I just can’t. And I think, particularly, cloaking that behaviour and those attitudes behind a veil of art is just fucked.”.' (Introduction)
'Hannah Gadsby’s show Nanette has been met with rave reviews. But can it deliver on what others promise for it?' (Introduction)
'The new issue of Griffith Review is about the perennially newsworthy subjects of immigration and multiculturalism, and the lead essay by James Button and Abul Rizvi is essential reading. It offers a concise but clear-eyed account of our nearly total dependence on skilled immigrants for continued economic prosperity and challenges our leaders to break with the decades-long habit of undermining public debate about the implications of this dependence.' (Introduction)
'“Dan dropped dead on the sand and that was that.” In the first sentence of the first story in this very enjoyable new collection, Robert Drewe establishes the sea as a place of both death and sly comedy. There is a hoary literary convention of the sea as metaphor; you might even say it has been overfished for allegory. Yet with his narrative inventiveness, and the deft combination of a light touch and dark sensibility, Drewe offers a fresh perspective on oceanic themes – freedom, cleansing and renewal along with their obverse of entrapment, muck and danger. Playful undercurrents and perilous rips of eroticism run through these tales. The sea is a moody and sensuous beast.' (Introduction)
'Angela Meyer’s first novel, A Superior Spectre, is a superior ghost story. It is a tale of two protagonists, a 19th-century Scottish woman and a 21st-century Australian man, who come to haunt each other, thanks to a pseudo-pharmaceutical that transports the contemporary narrator through time and space into the woman’s consciousness.' (Introduction)
