'The Unknown Digger is Australia's most famous WWI poet. But for decades, his identity has remained a mystery. Enter Matthew Denton - a PhD student at University College, London - who believes the unknown digger to be fact one of Australia's greatest war heroes- Lieutenant Alan Lewis VC of the 10th Light Horse. As the story of Lieutenant Lewis, fighting his way across Sinai, Palestine, Jordan and Syria unfolds, the question of what makes him a poet, a lover and a hero becomes a troubled one. Meanwhile, in the footnotes, scholar Matt Denton is fighting his own battles with romance and with academia as he attempts to rewrite literary history.' (Publication summary)
Epigraph :
'War ain't no giddy garden feet - it's war:
A game that calls up love an' 'atred both.
An' them that shudders at the sight o' gore,
An' shrinks to 'ear a drunken soldier's oath,
Must 'die be'ind the man wot 'eaves the bricks.
An' thank their Gawd for all their Ginger Micks.'
- C.J. Dennis, 'The Call of Stoush'
Epigraph :
'Hell, I've taken all the Turk can throw at me,
An' more. Would do it all again, like that,
An' more, to feel the sand of home beneath my feet,
The waves out back, the bullets past my cheeks,
My mates waiting on the shore.'
-The Unknown Digger, 'Out Back'
'Writers seeking publication are often advised to have an ‘elevator pitch’ ready. These succinct book-hooks are designed to jag a trapped publisher in the wink between a lift door closing and reopening. Has this insane tactic ever actually worked? No idea. But it’s fun to imagine the CEO of Big Sales Books, on their way up to another corner-office day of tallying cricket memoir profits, blindsided by three of the looniest elevator pitches imaginable. A novel narrated by Jackson Pollock’s Blue Poles! A faux political memoir about a prime minister and his shark vendetta! An academic satire cum historical mystery mashup told largely through the – wait, wait, wait! – footnotes of a PhD thesis! That CEO will probably take the stairs next time, but kudos to the independent publishers who saw the potential in these experimental works and their début authors. Whatever the path of weird Australian writing, long may it find its way to these pages.' (Introduction)
'Writers seeking publication are often advised to have an ‘elevator pitch’ ready. These succinct book-hooks are designed to jag a trapped publisher in the wink between a lift door closing and reopening. Has this insane tactic ever actually worked? No idea. But it’s fun to imagine the CEO of Big Sales Books, on their way up to another corner-office day of tallying cricket memoir profits, blindsided by three of the looniest elevator pitches imaginable. A novel narrated by Jackson Pollock’s Blue Poles! A faux political memoir about a prime minister and his shark vendetta! An academic satire cum historical mystery mashup told largely through the – wait, wait, wait! – footnotes of a PhD thesis! That CEO will probably take the stairs next time, but kudos to the independent publishers who saw the potential in these experimental works and their début authors. Whatever the path of weird Australian writing, long may it find its way to these pages.' (Introduction)
