'In this award-winning selection of his short fiction, essays and journalism from the last decade, Robert Dessaix offers insights into the many selves at play behind the mask of well-known broadcaster and author of "Night Letters". Traveller, thinker, linguist, and self-confessed dilettante, Dessaix muses in these pieces on an astonishing array of subjects from Orientalism to Aboriginal spirituality, from the art of translation to the nature of creativity, from covetousness to gay fiction, from Albanian tourism to adoption and the suburban family.Underlying these finely nuanced conversations with the reader is a passion for language and for finding ways to write with simplicity about intricate yet vital things–intimacy, mortality, time, love.
'"(and so forth)" was a bestseller when first published in hardback in 1998, and won the Colin Roderick Award for 1999 for the best Australian book of 1998. This paperback edition includes the 8-page colour section.'(Publication summary)
'Occasionally I go bush with a friend, and as we walk she will—with little apparent effort—take in the lie of the land. When we break to catch our breath, or to check our ankles for leeches, or to fix an undone shoelace, she will have counted how many creeks we’ve crossed, will have noticed how the steep cliffs and undulating valleys correspond to the contours of our map. With a swivel of her head along the ridgeline, she’ll be able to establish roughly where it is we now are. As though thumbing back through the pages of a just-read chapter, she might trace with her finger the passages we’ve covered: ‘that must be that section of blue gums’ or ‘that’s back where that landslide was’ or ‘here’s when we made a turn for the east’. I, meanwhile, might have noticed globules of blood-red resin weeping from the base of a tree, or have been startled by a black cockatoo winging itself across my path and scoured the ground afterwards for its feathers … but I will mostly be oblivious. The overall shape of the land we’re passing through will remain a blur to me.' (Introduction)
'Occasionally I go bush with a friend, and as we walk she will—with little apparent effort—take in the lie of the land. When we break to catch our breath, or to check our ankles for leeches, or to fix an undone shoelace, she will have counted how many creeks we’ve crossed, will have noticed how the steep cliffs and undulating valleys correspond to the contours of our map. With a swivel of her head along the ridgeline, she’ll be able to establish roughly where it is we now are. As though thumbing back through the pages of a just-read chapter, she might trace with her finger the passages we’ve covered: ‘that must be that section of blue gums’ or ‘that’s back where that landslide was’ or ‘here’s when we made a turn for the east’. I, meanwhile, might have noticed globules of blood-red resin weeping from the base of a tree, or have been startled by a black cockatoo winging itself across my path and scoured the ground afterwards for its feathers … but I will mostly be oblivious. The overall shape of the land we’re passing through will remain a blur to me.' (Introduction)
