'Shaw discusses Frank Moorhouse's early writings on Australian sociography. Frank Moorhouse's early writings, in particular the short story collections he termed "discontinuous narrative," Futility and Other Animals (1969) and The Americans, Baby (1972), are a contribution to the current of social and literary changes in Australia around the events of 1972, a year which "has become one of those dates that serve as shorthand reference to distinct periods or phases" (v), according to Kiernan in his Introduction to The Americans, Baby.' (Editor's abstract)