Cirrus@Austlit

'Alex Miller’s 14th novel, The Deal, is “a true story in four parts”. How much of it is autobiographical is a question only the author can answer, but there are hints for readers who know his life and work.' (Introduction)   

'The location: a taverna on the Greek island of Corfu. The time: late afternoon in September 1990. Kári Gíslason is 18, travelling through Europe, broke, and about to meet the titular pirate of his memoir Running with Pirates: “the sliding glass door rumbled open. ‘What is it?’ The Pirate’s head appeared while his body stayed behind the door, in the dark. ‘I’m not open,’ he said. ‘Fuck off.’ ”'

'“Ding! Round One.” This repeated opening sentence leads to hard-hitting moments in Daniel Tamone’s debut novel, The Fists of the Father, which centres on three generations of an Australian boxing family. For the youngest, 25-year-old Ted “Little Boy Blue” Taylor, the opening round started not when he first entered the ring but when he was a child facing his father’s “monstrous hands’’ in the family home in Sydney’s west.' (Introduction)

'The title of Dominic Gordon’s debut book, Excitable Boy: Essays on Risk, is borrowed from the 1978 song by American musician Warren Zevon. The excitable boy in this memoir – the author – is not as bad as the rapist and murderer in the song, but nor is he good. He’s a thief and a drug addict. An illegal graffiti artist, brawler and glory hole-user, sex club and brothel regular. He’s a film buff who loves crime thrillers because he wants to emulate the criminals he sees on screen.' (Introduction)

'Phoebe Cotton, the main character in Imbi Neeme’s second novel, Kind of Sort of Maybe … but probably not, suffers from misophonia, as does the author. Essentially, it’s a strong dislike of certain sounds.'  (Introduction) 

'Some films are so good they overpower any adjective put before them. Is Poor Things, directed by Greek filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos and written by Australian playwright and screenwriter Tony McNamara, extraordinary, outstanding, profound, hilarious, Oscar-worthy and so on? It is but it’s more than that. It’s mind-blowing, mind-expanding, mind-bending. You will be talking about it for days afterwards.' (Introduction)