'I only properly met Frank Moorhouse once. It was the mid-2000s and as a writing and cultural studies student, I had submitted a short story to the University of Technology, Sydney’s annual literary anthology. The story – like this book review – was (perhaps overly) preoccupied with bisexuality. It featured a married couple who are seduced by a sculptor named Voltz; at the climax of the story, the latter ends up taking the couple to bed before a TV explodes. I had lifted the name from Moorhouse’s then recently published Martini: A Memoir (2005), where ‘Voltz’ was one of his key correspondents. The slim volume must have made an impression on me, though I don’t remember much from it now. At some point, after drafting my story, I typed ‘For Frank Moorhouse’ under its title, perhaps acknowledging the loan of a character’s name, but also nodding to the story’s sexual openness, which Frank had been known for. After hitting submit, I didn’t think much more about it.' (Introduction)
'In the final pages of Only Sound Remains, Iranian-Australian writer Hossein Asgari posits the ‘impossible metamorphosis of body and soul’ as ‘the only possible cure’ for ‘despair rooted in [his] body … which fed and grew on everything that preceded it: history, culture, and all the surrounding factors’. The lines are uttered by Saeed, the protagonist of Asgari’s debut novel, and they might be thought of as the book’s thesis statement. Arising amidst the death and loss depicted throughout the novel, the note of despair accompanies a detailed and thoughtful engagement with Iranian history and culture (cinema, philosophy, and – most essentially – poetry) throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Though the novel’s allusions are sufficiently rich and lively to limit the pervasive sense of anguish plaguing Saeed, the pain proves ultimately incurable; this is the tension at the novel’s core.' (Introduction)
