y separately published work icon Australian Book Review periodical issue  
Issue Details: First known date: 2023... no. 454 June 2023 of Australian Book Review est. 1961 Australian Book Review
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'Welcome to the June issue of ABR! This month ABR examines politics and influence from the media to federal and international politics. Major features include David Rolph on Lachlan Murdoch versus Crikey, Mark Kenny on the Albanese government’s first year in office, Patrick Mullins on a new book on Scott Morrison, and John Zubrzycki on Narendra Modi’s new strategy for India. Raelene Frances reviews Ross McMullin’s new group biography Life So Full of Promise and Joan Beaumont reflects on the 1943 bombing of Berlin. Also in the issue, Robyn Archer takes us behind the scenes in our new ‘Backstage’ interview series, Kate Lilley pays tribute to John Tranter, and we publish the runner-up in the 2023 Calibre Essay Prize ‘Child Adjacent’ by Bridget Vincent.' (Publication summary)

 

Contents

* Contents derived from the 2023 version. Please note that other versions/publications may contain different contents. See the Publication Details.
ABR's New Laureat, single work column
'Australian Book Review welcomes internationally renowned historian Sheila Fitzpatrick as its new Laureate.'
(p. 13)
Radiant Promise : Three Lives Cut Short by the Great War, Raelene Frances , single work review
— Review of Life So Full of Promise : Further Biographies of Australia’s Lost Generation Ross McMullin , 2023 selected work biography ;

'Just over a decade ago, Ross McMullin published Farewell, Dear People (2012), a magisterial biography of ten remarkable Australians killed in World War I. The book met with much acclaim, including the award of the Prime Minister’s Prize for Australian History in 2013. Life So Full of Promise, a sequel to this volume, provides three more biographies of men whose early lives suggested that they would have made extraordinary contributions to Australian public life, had they survived the war.'(Introduction)

(p. 15)
‘And yet More Fire’ : The Bombing of Berlin, Joan Beaumont , single work review
— Review of Dispatch from Berlin, 1943 : The Story of Five Journalists Who Risked Everything Anthony Cooper , Thorsten Perl , 2023 single work biography ;

'Bomber Command operations cost about 3,500 Australian lives in World War II. This was more than five times the number of Australians who died in the Battle of Kokoda from July to November 1942. Yet the strategic bombing offensive over Germany has never held a comparable place in the national memory of war.' (Introduction)

(p. 17-18)
'Inside My Own Flesh' : The Everyday Horrors of Identity, Diane Stubbings , single work review
— Review of Fat Girl Dancing Krissy Kneen , 2023 single work autobiography ;

'In previous memoirs, Brisbane-based writer Kris Kneen has examined their life through the lens of their sexuality (Affection, 2009) and their family history (The Three Burials of Lotty Kneen, 2021). In Fat Girl Dancing, Kneen’s lens is their body, specifically the body of a ‘short, fat, ageing woman’.' (Introduction)

(p. 22)
To Kythera : The Difficult Art of Running Away, Jacqueline Kent , single work review
— Review of Aphrodite's Breath : A Memoir Susan Johnson , 2023 single work autobiography ;

''Who hasn’t longed to run away?’ asks Susan Johnson at the beginning of this memoir-cum-travel book about her time on the Greek island of Kythera. It is a question that invites a show of hands. Fewer people, however, might be inclined to bring their mothers with them.'(Introduction)

(p. 23)
Intricacies of Aliveness : A Personal Tribute to John Tranter (1943-2023), Kate Lilley , single work obituary

'Poet and editor extraordinaire John Tranter died on 21 April 2023, after a few cruel years of illness with Lewy body dementia. Friends and family gathered at his funeral in the inner Sydney suburb of Rozelle on what would have been his eightieth birthday (29 April) to celebrate John’s remarkable life and mourn his loss. I was honoured to be one of the speakers: what follows incorporates what I said there.' (Introduction)

(p. 24-25)
No Exit : Nuanced Readings of the Modern Family, Michael Winkler , single work review
— Review of Family : Stories of Belonging 2022 anthology prose autobiography essay ;

'The nuclear family has a bad literary rap. As we know from fiction and memoir, the traditional two-heterosexual-parents-and-biological-kids model, a structure that provides stability and nourishment for some, can also be a stricture, a disappointment, even a crucible of cruelty. The opening sentence of Anna Karenina notwithstanding, unhappiness is unhappiness; there are common experiences for the survivors of family difficulty, even when specifics differ.' (Introduction)

(p. 26-27)
Child Adjacent, Bridget Vincent , single work essay

'I feel like I need to come out every day. I’m pushing the stroller, fishing out the dummy, pointing out dogs, but this isn’t what it looks like. At the playground or the checkout, I take the nods and maternal solidarity, staying inside the parenting illusion until it feels slightly disingenuous. I am not the mother. I am an aunt instead, if ‘instead’ is even the right word. There are categories – infertile, childless by circumstance, childless by choice – and within these, more specific groups like the Birthstrikers, who are publicly delaying procreation until there is climate action. Being an aunt of the Anthropocene is none of these, and all of them at once.' (Introduction) 

(p. 27-29)
The Messenger : Jimmy Little’s Remarkable Second Act, Philip Morrissey , single work review
— Review of Jimmy Little : A Yorta Yorta Man Frances Peters-Little , 2023 single work biography ;

'The remarkable second act of Jimmy Little’s career commenced with the release of Messenger in 1999. The album was a selection of atmospheric renditions of classic Australian rock songs. In stark contrast to the reassuring homeliness of his earlier recordings, Little’s reading of them evoked an Australia of vast empty spaces, melancholy, and solitude. Those lucky enough to attend the concerts that followed were struck by his goodwill and by the assured mastery of his performance and the fineness of his voice, which hadn’t deteriorated with age.' (Introduction)

(p. 30)
Just More Unravelling : AI Infiltrates ABR, Alex Cothren , single work review
— Review of The Terrible Event : Stories David Cohen , 2023 selected work short story ;

'Hassled by deadlines and stricken by illness, I made a very modern deal with the devil. I asked ChatGPT to help me review David Cohen’s new short story collection, The Terrible Event. For the past few months, this text generating tool has made news by using AI technology to write everything from A+ high-school essays to faux-Nick Cave lyrics. Surely, then, it could provide some scaffolding for a thousand-word book review, a few handholds to help a tired reviewer scurry over this task and on to the next?' (Introduction)

(p. 32)
Paths Forward : A Well-researched Historical Début, Rose Lucas , single work review
— Review of House of Longing Tara Calaby , 2023 single work novel ;

'Tara Calaby’s début novel, based on her doctoral studies, wears its clearly extensive research lightly as it weaves an engrossing story of a young woman’s struggle in 1890s Melbourne towards something a contemporary reader might call social, emotional, and sexual independence. Focused around the story of an individual, House of Longing also traverses a broad canvas of social issues – class, gender roles, attitudes to mental health and its treatment, the importance of friendship, and the possibilities of sexual love between women.' (Introduction)

(p. 33)
History as Filigree : Dominic Smith’s Sixth Novel, Kerryn Goldsworthy , single work review
— Review of Return to Valetto Dominic Smith , 2023 single work novel ;

'A few pages in to Return to Valetto, the narrator Hugh Fisher is on a train from Rome to Orvieto and is being eyed suspiciously by an elderly Italian woman, who can see the photograph of himself with his daughter that he is using as a bookmark:

I looked up from my book and into her Old Testament face. Mia figlia, I said, my daughter. For good measure, I told her in Italian that I was a widower, that it had taken me the better part of five years to remove my wedding band, that Susan was getting her PhD in economics at Oxford … This information passed through her like a muscle relaxant as she returned to knitting a tiny mauve sock.' (Introduction)

 

(p. 35)
Millennial Woman Lost : Three Novels about Female Identity, Laura Woollett , single work review
— Review of Sad Girl Novel Pip Finkemeyer , 2023 single work novel ; Crushing Genevieve Novak , 2023 single work novel ; Prettier If She Smiled More Toni Jordan , 2023 single work novel ;
(p. 36-37)
Portraits of the Future IIi"Have a care, we sometimes say, spare a thought,", Judith Bishop , single work poetry (p. 44)
Open Page with Ross McMullin, single work interview (p. 49)
'The Heritage I Bring' : The Gargantuan Poetry of John Kinsella, John Hawke , single work review
— Review of The Ascension of Sheep : Collected Poems Volume One (1980-2005) John Kinsella , 2022 selected work poetry ;

'A quarter of a century has passed since Ivor Indyk contributed a scathing review of John Kinsella’s first collected poems to the pages of ABR (July 1997), and the contending responses to that opinion have typified the reception of his poetry among the vituperative local poetry community ever since. This extravagant representation of his work – two volumes of close to a thousand pages each, with a third volume pending – might seem almost deliberately designed to expose the author to similar criticism. Rather than a conventionally shaped collected edition, this is more like a throwing open of filing cabinets, and the nearly 1,700 pages presented so far are certainly not all masterpieces.' (Introduction)

(p. 50)
Painted Weatheri"Your meteorology app fails and you turn", A. Frances Johnson , single work poetry (p. 51)
Vale Barry Humphries : The Great Comedian’s Love Affair with Weimar Germany, Peter Tregear , single work obituary

'Barry Humphries loved telling a story concerning a visit he and the painter David Hockney made to an art exhibition held at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1991. What drew them there was a reconstruction of the Entartete Kunst (Degenerate Art) exhibition the Nazis had assembled in Munich in 1937 to help validate and promote their racial ideology. The crude argument it promoted was that the distorted forms typical of much modern art of the time somehow demonstrated the corrupting influence of the artists (often Jewish) who had painted them.' (Introduction)

(p. 60)
Backstage with Robyn Archer, single work interview (p. 61)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

Last amended 3 Apr 2024 16:01:15
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