Cirrus@Austlit

'My first Murnanian encounter was of a humiliatingly Bloomian stripe. On a visit to my editor’s office to discuss the second draft of what was then a slip of a manuscript, I was offered a long list of books, collections and anthologies he felt were in my interest to investigate. When the question of which of Murnane’s books I had read was raised, I confessed not only to having never read a word Murnane had written, but also to never having heard his name before. To this my editor recoiled as though I’d hocked a golly in his direction. Murnane, my editor informed me, was not only a major author in Australian letters, despite what is often referred to as his “lack of wider recognition”, but more to the point, was one of the brightest stars in my editor’s stable, and as such, my editor had every right to take my inattention to this important author as a personal and embarrassing failing on both our accounts.' (Introduction)