Being in the Room single work   review  
Issue Details: First known date: 2019... 2019 Being in the Room
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'Every biographer has a relationship with their subject, even if they have passed away. A real advantage for biographers of the dead is that the subject cannot say what they think about the book. The relationship between Margaret Simons and Penny Wong was fraught. That this mattered is evident from the opening sentence: ‘Penny Wong did not want this book to be written.’ Simons, a journalist, biographer, and associate professor at Monash University, uses her preface to complain about how difficult it was researching the book without Wong’s assistance and against her will. Finally, well into Simons’s writing, she was invited to Senator Wong’s office, where Wong gave her ‘a hard time’. The relationship thawed and Simons was able to conduct six interviews. Readers will be glad that Wong overcame her resistance to this intrusion into her life: the stories in Wong’s voice and her personal memories are rich elements of the book. Yet there are recurrent reminders of Simons’s tense relationship with her subject.' (Introduction)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Australian Book Review no. 417 December 2019 18419649 2019 periodical issue

    'Welcome to the December issue of ABR – always our most anticipated edition of the year because of the inclusion of Books of the Year. Thirty-three leading critics and writers nominate their favourite publications of the year. Find out what people like Beejay Silcox, James Ley, Susan Wyndham, Andrea Goldsmith, and Bronwyn Lea most enjoyed reading in 2019. Other highlights include Peter Rose on Helen Garner’s brilliant and defiant diaries; Zora Simic on the legacies of sexual harassment; Angela Woollacott on Margaret Simons’s biography of Penny Wong; and Chris Flynn on Elliot Perlman’s new novel. Elsewhere, legendary journalist Brian Toohey reviews Edward Snowden’s memoirs, Monash historian Christina Twomey laments the ‘terror in extraterritoriality’, and the poet Michael Hofmann contributes a brilliant satire on Donal Dump (aka Donald Trump).' (Publication summary)

    2019
    pg. 16-17
Last amended 16 Dec 2019 08:56:23
16-17 https://www.australianbookreview.com.au/abr-online/archive/2019/december-2019-no-417/689-december-2019-no-417/6052-angela-woollacott-reviews-penny-wong-passion-and-principle-by-margaret-simons Being in the Roomsmall AustLit logo Australian Book Review
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