Cirrus@Austlit

'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)

'Cast Mates is a group biography of Australian acting giants across the ages.

'Australia has a long cinema history - starting with the world's first feature film, The Story of the Kelly Gang, made in Melbourne and released in 1906. Today, much of Australia's film talent goes to the United States, looking for bigger and more lucrative opportunities overseas. But what does this mean for both the history and future of Australian cinema?

'The larger-than-life personalities that form the heart of this book - Errol Flynn, Peter Finch, David Gulpilil AM and Nicole Kidman - have dominated cinema screens both locally and internationally and starred in some of the biggest films of their eras - including The Adventures of Robin Hood, Network, Crocodile Dundee and Eyes Wide Shut among others.

'From the Golden Age of Hollywood in the 1930s to the streaming wars of today, the lives of these four actors, and their many cast mates, tell a story of how a nation's cinema was founded, then faltered, before finding itself again.' (Publication summary)

'In December 2017, the artist and radio producer Jesse Cox died from a rare soft tissue cancer, Alveolar Soft Part Sarcoma. He was terribly young, only 31.' (Introduction)

'Writing and mental illness make excellent bedfellows, for better or worse. The Rapids – creative and courageous – is an extraordinary personal memoir peppered with film and literary criticism, as well as family history. With reflections on artists such as Carrie Fisher, Kanye West, Robert Lowell, Delmore Schwartz, Paul Thomas Anderson and Spalding Gray, Twyford-Moore also looks at the condition in our digital world, where someone’s manic episode can unfold live in real time, watched by millions.

'His own story, told unflinchingly, is shocking and sometimes blackly comic. It gives the book an edge that is not always comfortable but full of insight and empathy. Smart, lively and well-researched, The Rapids manages to be both a wild ride and introspective at once, exploring a condition that touches thousands of people, directly or indirectly.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.