y separately published work icon Australian Book Review periodical issue  
Issue Details: First known date: 2023... no. 457 September 2023 of Australian Book Review est. 1961 Australian Book Review
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'In September we explore the ripple effects of Trumpian politics in Australia with Joel Deane on Melbourne’s lockdown rage, Ben Wellings on populism, and Emma Shortis on a second Trump presidency. James Curran takes issue with Clare Wright’s call for historians to ‘hold their tongues’ on the Voice and Desmond Manderson considers the political impact of the 1963 Yirrkala Bark Petition. Also in the issue, we have Nick Hordern on two books about Russia and Ukraine, Kieran Pender on the Facebook whistleblower, Penny Russell on Kate Grenville’s new novel, and Sarah Ogilvie on Australian contributors to the first Oxford English Dictionary.' (Publication summary)

Contents

* Contents derived from the 2023 version. Please note that other versions/publications may contain different contents. See the Publication Details.
Stanner in Reverse : A Response to Clare Wright, James Curran , single work essay

'Clare Wright’s letter in response to Bain Attwood (ABR, August 2023) should profoundly disturb and unsettle anyone in this country concerned about the survival of active, rigorous, and engaged historical scholarship.' (Introduction)

(p. 13)
Yunupingu's Song : Constitutions as Acts of Vision, Not of Division, Desmond Manderson , single work essay

'From the age of fifteen until his recent death at the age of seventy-four, the great Yolngu leader Yunupingu (1948–2023) was at the forefront of the struggle to change the Australian legal system in unprecedented ways. In 1963, with his father, Mungurrawuy, he drafted the Yirrkala Bark Petition, which presented to Parliament an eloquent claim for the rights of the Indigenous peoples of Arnhem Land before their country was, without their consent, turned into a bauxite mine. The Bark Petition was no ordinary document. On the one hand, it uses the antiquated language of a traditional ‘humble petition’ to Parliament, concluding in forms of speech that have hardly changed since the seventeenth century: ‘And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray.’' (Introduction)

(p. 24-26)
Close to the Bone : Julie Janson’s Début Novel, Debra Adelaide , single work review
— Review of Madukka the River Serpent Julie Janson , 2022 single work novel ;

'Given the huge popularity of crime fiction, some readers might wonder why there are not more examples by Aboriginal authors. Perhaps it is because crime in general is too close to the bone. It was only coincidental to be reviewing Julie Janson’s Madukka the River Serpent amid the controversy that followed the ABC’s coverage of the recent coronation, yet the relevance was inescapable. For the tiny number of readers unaware, this is when the slimy gutter of social media-fuelled racism dragged journalist Stan Grant down to the point where the national broadcaster lost one of its best (temporarily, one hopes). Grant’s departure speech at the end of his final Q&A on 21 May was so moving and thought-provoking it will stand in history alongside other landmark speeches – Paul Keating’s Redfern address springs to mind – and may well prove to be a catalyst for reform. Though prompted by cruelty and hate, it responded with generosity and love – love of people, love of culture, love of country.' (Introduction)

(p. 28)
What Artists Do : Three Novels about Artists and Their Subjects, Naama Grey-Smith , single work review
— Review of The Sitter Angela O'Keeffe , 2023 single work novel ; Vincent and Sien Silvia Kwon , 2023 single work novel ; Wall Jen Craig , 2023 single work novel ;

'The relationship between artists and their sitters has long been a topic of fascination and enquiry – not least for artists themselves. The study of portraiture is often informed by investigations of this relationship as well as that with a third party: the viewer.' (Introduction)

(p. 29-30)
Polycrisis : Coming of Age in a Collapsing World, J.R. Burgmann , single work review
— Review of Eta Draconis Brendan Ritchie , 2023 single work novel ; The Comforting Weight of Water Roanna McClelland , 2023 single work novel ;

'At a time when the world strains under the pressure of multiple crises, it stands to reason that coming of age might no longer hold the same literary value it once did. This ‘polycrisis’ encompasses not only the convergence of myriad catastrophic events – climate change, war, Covid-19, the resurgence of fascism, etc. – but also the failure of metanarratives or belief systems to mitigate against these. Amid all this unprecedentedness, the rise of an anti-Bildungsroman sentiment hardly surprises. In different ways, both Brendan Ritchie’s Eta Draconis and Roanna McClelland’s The Comforting Weight of Water attend to the central question: how does one come of age in a collapsing world? It’s a line of enquiry that just so happens to reflect Franco Moretti’s critique of the Bildungsroman genre in The Way of the WorldThe Bildungsroman in European culture (1987), articulating how the novel of youth upholds the myth of Western modernity and progress.'(Introduction)

(p. 30-31)
Suburbia’s Crackle and Hum : Blending the Sinister and Domestic, Jennifer Mills , single work review
— Review of Ordinary Gods and Monsters Chris Womersley , 2023 single work novel ;

'In his essay on the uncanny, Sigmund Freud observed that fiction writers have an unusual privilege in setting the terms of the real, what he called a ‘peculiarly directive power’: ‘by means of the moods he can put us into, he is able to guide the current of our emotions’, and ‘often obtains a great variety of effects from the same material’.' (Introduction)

(p. 32)
Mirrors on Misery : A Brilliant Portrait of an Unhappy Marriage, Penny Russell , single work review
— Review of Restless Dolly Maunder Kate Grenville , 2023 single work novel ;

'In Restless Dolly Maunder, Kate Grenville weaves a fictional narrative around her grandmother, a woman she remembers as ‘aloof, thin, frowning, cranky’, and knew through her mother’s stories as ‘uncaring, selfish, unloving. Even a bit mad.’' (Introduction)

(p. 33)
The Art of Losing : Briohny Doyle’s Third Novel, Alex Cothren , single work review
— Review of Why We Are Here Briohny Doyle , 2023 single work novel ;

'Briohny Doyle’s third novel, Why We Are Here, threads together just about every literary, philosophical, and pop culture perspective on death and aftermath there is. But nothing represents the heart of the book better than its exploration of both/and thinking. Embraced by the fields of business, psychology, and beyond, both/and thinking is a method of overcoming paradoxes, not by solving them but by honouring how two apparently contradictory truths can co-exist. There’s no explaining the singular effect of this book without it.'(Introduction)

(p. 36)
Fabergé Egg : A Glittering Portrait of a Cosmetics Empress, Ian Britain , single work review
— Review of Helena Rubinstein : The Australian Years Angus Trumble , 2023 single work biography ;

'Angus Trumble, who died suddenly last October, was a towering figure with a slight sideways tilt to his head. In his famously dandyish attire he might have stepped out of a Max Beerbohm cartoon, and appropriately so given his expertise in Victorian and Edwardian art. Trumble’s latest, and last, subject also chimes with one of Beerbohm’s earliest literary ventures, ‘A Defence of Cosmetics’, published in 1894.' (Introduction)

(p. 44)
Wallpaperi"I stick shut scissors in the doorhandle’s cavity and twist. He’s on his bed on his", Anders Villani , single work poetry (p. 47)
Unseen Borders : A Breath of Fresh Anthological Air, Judith Bishop , single work review
— Review of Alcatraz 2022 anthology poetry prose ;

'Alcatraz is an international anthology of prose poems which builds on the success of previous collaborations between the artist Phil Day and poets Cassandra Atherton and Paul Hetherington. Contributors include many outstanding poets from the United States (twenty-eight), the United Kingdom (ten), and Australia (thirteen), with smaller numbers of poets from India, New Zealand, Germany, Singapore, Vietnam and Hong Kong. The title with its alphabetical alpha and omega, was offered to the poets as an inspiration. I was halfway through the book before I realised the book itself embodies a multitude of jail breaks, vaulting over a range of conventions. These include its front and back cover – entirely taken up by a numinous painted image, the title on its spine the only printed word – and even the luxurious feel of its paper.' (Introduction)

(p. 51-52)
Eyes Wide Open : Gerald Murnane Selects Lesbia Harford, Rose Lucas , single work review
— Review of Selected Poems Lesbia Harford , 2023 selected work poetry ;

'In her short life, Lesbia Harford (1891–1927) created a body of poems which have become increasingly important to scholars and poets in understanding both the impact of poetic modernism in Australia and shifting concepts of gender, class, and the tensions between a personal and a collective politics. While Oliver Dennis’s 2014 Collected Poems of Lesbia Harford presents Harford’s full oeuvre, the new Text Classics edition, selected and introduced by Gerald Murnane, brings a sharp and accessible focus on this seminal Australian poet, highlighting her key themes and demonstrating a literary style that straddled worlds: from the formal structures and decorous themes of late nineteenth-century poetry to the challenges to form, voice, and subject matter that characterised the emerging revolutions of literary modernism.' (Introduction)

(p. 52-53)
Form, Sound, Address : Manoeuvres of Language and Form, Cassandra Atherton , single work review
— Review of Acrobat Music : New and Selected Poems Jill Jones , 2022 selected work poetry ;

'Jill Jones has given many interviews about her poetry where, inevitably, an interviewer asks her, ‘What is Australian poetry?’ In one of my favourite quips, Jones says, ‘Is it only Australians who worry about what is “Australian” poetry?’ Related issues are addressed in her pithy foreword to her second volume of new and selected poems, Acrobat Music. She states, ‘I realise, and others have said, my work doesn’t fit easily into a specified school, category or type of Australian poetry.’ This provides a fortifying manifesto to her oeuvre, reflecting Jones’s interest in ‘the possibilities of the poem … form, sound, connotation, address’.' (Introduction)

(p. 55)
An Interview with Andy Jackson, single work interview

'Andy Jackson is a poet, creative writing teacher, and a Patron of Writers Victoria. He was the inaugural Writing the Future of Health Fellow, and has co-edited disability-themed issues of Southerly and Australian Poetry Journal. Andy’s latest poetry collection is Human Looking (Giramondo, 2021), which won the ALS Gold Medal and the Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Poetry.' (Introduction)

(p. 56)
Glover Country : A Pioneering Study of the Artist, Anne Gray , single work review
— Review of John Glover : Patterdale Farm and the Revelation of the Australian Landscape Ron Radford , 2022 single work biography ;

'If you think you know about John Glover (1767–1849) and his achievements, then think again. Read this publication and you will discover fresh and compelling information about Glover, his life in Australia, and his house and garden.' (Introduction)

(p. 62)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

Last amended 5 Mar 2024 15:33:15
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