Dion Kagan Dion Kagan i(A135899 works by)
Gender: Male
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Works By

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1 Condemned Real Estate, and Grief Dion Kagan , 2023 single work
— Appears in: Meanjin Online 2023;

— Review of Why We Are Here Briohny Doyle , 2023 single work novel

'In Briohny Doyle’s fourth book, a writer called BB has lost both her partner and father in close succession, and, in the aftermath of their deaths, experiences the first wave of pandemic lockdowns. Certain that further quarantine will see her petrified in viscous grief—that she will ‘crawl out of [her] share-house bedroom an old woman in a post-apocalyptic ruin’—she retreats to a beachfront rental above a condemned shop in the seaside area of Balboa Bay. Her plan is to heal by the ocean, ‘weightless and untethered for a short time’, before returning to real life.' (Introduction)

1 Diminished Patriarchal Dividend Dion Kagan , 2022 single work review
— Appears in: Meanjin Online 2022;

— Review of Losing Face George Haddad , 2022 single work novel
1 Friendship, Polyamory, Precarity Dion Kagan , 2022 single work review
— Appears in: Meanjin , December vol. 81 no. 4 2022; (p. 238)

— Review of People Who Lunch : Essays on Work, Leisure and Loose Living Sally Olds , 2022 selected work essay
1 Ephemeral Social Scene Dion Kagan , 2022 single work review
— Appears in: Sydney Review of Books , August 2022;

'Buried Not Dead is a collection of essays from across the career of the brilliant Sydney writer and performance artist Fiona Kelly McGregor. I first read it in 2021 (I think), though recalled that I’d read some of the essays before when they first appeared in places like Overland or the (now defunct) performing arts magazine RealTime.' (Introduction)

1 An Exciting and Vivid Inner Life Paul Dalla Rosa Dion Kagan , 2022 single work review
— Appears in: The Monthly , June no. 189 2022; (p. 65)

— Review of An Exciting and Vivid Inner Life Paul Dalla Rosa , 2022 selected work short story
'A WHITE-COLLAR gay man, bored on a luxury holiday in Majorca, takes a bus to Palma and uses the Grindr app to buy extortionately priced drugs. An Australian actor, half-heartedly attempting to resuscitate her career in Hollywood, eats marijuana gummies to make things “soft around the edges”. A woman with a loathsome call-centre job shares a fl at with a man who rejects her friendship overtures; he writes her a note saying he “would prefer to live separate but cohabited lives” and is “not comfortable with social interactions with a stranger”.' 

(Introduction)

1 Son of Sin : Omar Sakr Dion Kagan , 2022 single work review
— Appears in: The Monthly , March no. 186 2022; (p. 56)

— Review of Son of Sin Omar Sakr , 2022 single work novel
'“[W]hat was dread if not desire’s other face”? For Jamal Smith, the eponymous son of sin in Omar Sakr’s debut novel, coming of age as a queer Muslim in Western Sydney is animated by these twin feelings. Alas, for Jamal, desire tends to get lost in the dread.'

 (Introduction)

1 Ronnie Scott on the Ties That Bind Dion Kagan , 2020 single work column
— Appears in: The Saturday Paper , 4-10 April 2020;
'In his debut novel, The Adversary, Ronnie Scott explores the intense friendships and social rituals of young gay men. Here, he talks about trying to read the unspoken intentions of others, and the unintended consequences of our everyday behaviour. “Of course, it makes sense that people would want to decode others,” Scott says. “Hitching your fate to another person or letting someone into a really private part of your life … is an act of trust.”' (Introduction)
1 The Rules of Transaction Dion Kagan , 2017 single work essay
— Appears in: The Best of The Lifted Brow Volume Two 2017;

'Being rich and earning a lot of money is relentless, wearying work and having to work at relationships and intimacy is a further burden on the already time-poor. When rich men engage 'the girlfriend experience' they get more than just sex (as if 'just sex' were even a thing). With the girlfriend experience there are add-ons: comfort, affection, glamorous company, intellectual stimulation, distraction, flattery, an empathic ear-or at least an authentic-seeming performance of it, which is just as good. Of course there is sex, negotiated within certain parameters, but there is also a customised form of intimacy that is obliging and undemanding. The girlfriend experience is a bespoke romantic service, tailored to individual sexual and emotional needs. It is a rarefied form of sex work for an exclusive clientele, although in many ways the woman's labour is utterly mundane.'  (Publication abstract)

1 Fish In and Out of Water : The Embodied Aspects of Class and Sport in Barracuda Dion Kagan , 2017 single work essay
— Appears in: Metro Magazine , Summer vol. 191 no. 2017; (p. 34-41)
The ABC adaptation of Christos Tsiolkas' Barracuda may have downplayed some of the novel's explicit queerness, but in its place is an astringent subversion of Australia's glorification of sporting heroism and the white, hetero-masculine ideals tied to it. Moreover, writes Dion Kagan, the narrative's focus on swimming encapsulates the country's deep investment in individualistic social mobility, with the series interrogating societal inequities rooted in class, race, gender and sexuality.
1 [Review] The Best of The Lifted Brow. Volume One Dion Kagan , 2014 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , February no. 358 2014; (p. 63)

— Review of The Best of The Lifted Brow. Volume One 2013 anthology essay poetry short story
1 [Review Essay] Under the Skin Dion Kagan , 2014 single work essay
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , June-July no. 362 2014; ABR : Arts 2014;

— Review of Under the Skin 1993 series - publisher film/TV

'Under the Skin is adapted from Michael Faber’s eponymous speculative fiction novel (2000) in which an alien disguised as an attractive woman hunts hitchhikers in the Scottish highlands. Once she has determined that a man is appropriate prey, she drugs him and delivers him to a subterranean abattoir hidden beneath a farm where, in a disturbing allegorisation of factory farming, he is castrated, fattened up like foie gras, and prepared for shipment back to the alien home planet where human flesh is an expensive delicacy. This adaptation of Faber’s novel is the long-anticipated third feature film from director Jonathan Glazer.' (Introduction)

1 Being Lally Katz Dion Kagan , 2013 single work column
— Appears in: The Lifted Brow , September no. 19 2013; (p. 74-75)
1 1 y separately published work icon The Reader The Reader - Volume 1 Dion Kagan (editor), Melbourne : Emerging Writers' Festival , 2009 Z1724828 2009 anthology interview criticism essay 'The Reader combines highlights of the Emerging Writers' Festival 2009, with general writing information and new creative works across various writing forms. It is a resource for emerging writers, a "how-to" of advice and information, a collection of stories and experiences from both established and emerging writers, publishers, editors and other literary movers and shakers...' (Source: The Emerging Writer website www.emergingwritersfestival.org.au)
1 y separately published work icon The Death Mook Dion Kagan (editor), Coburg : Vignette Press , 2009 6169015 2009 anthology essay short story
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