Cirrus@Austlit

'Alan Wearne’s new book stands somewhere between his other two books with unified narratives. The Nightmarkets was a set of dramatic monologues reflecting on a single story while The Lovemakers investigated the stories of a large set of characters. Mixed Business is seven monologues covering a number of different stories but put together they make up a kind of history of political and social life in the suburbs of Victoria from just before the first World War to just about the present day: let’s say a span of a century. Wearne’s poetry is always about this kind of documenting but the precise topic and the precise mode of approaching it vary.' (Introduction)