AustLit

'H. V. ‘Doc’ Evatt has long been obscured by Menzies’s broad shadow, as the Labor Opposition Leader through the prosperous and complacent 1950s. In this book, one of our finest writers and sharpest minds shows Evatt in his true light: the most brilliant Australian of his day. Inspiring, cosmopolitan and humane, Evatt was the forerunner of Keating and Kirby, believing that Australia could be more than quiet and comfortable – it could be an example to the world of a compassionate, just, progressive society.

'An acclaimed advocate, champion of modern art and state member for Balmain in the NSW Parliament, in 1930 Evatt became Australia’s youngest ever High Court judge, a regular dissenter from this arch conservative body as he tried to make the law responsive to the rapidly-changing modern world. Haigh traces one case in particular – that of the Chester family, who sued Waverley Council for the trauma of their young son's drowning in an unfenced ditch. Evatt’s legal brilliance, intellectual independence and personal empathy combined in a judgement regarded as the finest of its era, arguing that people’s inner lives were as valuable as their physical selves, and ought to be recognised as such by the law. The idea was far ahead of its time, but is now a fundamental legal principle.

'Evatt had been attuned to grief by losing two brothers in the First World War, which contributed both to his zest for life and his belief that the world should offer sanctuary to the afflicted. This conviction had long-lasting expression: as Australia’s only ever President of the UN General Assembly, Evatt was instrumental in the establishment of Israel. There are not many of whom it might be said that leading their party in federal politics was a step down, but Evatt was such a figure.

'The Brilliant Boy is a feat of remarkable historical perception, deep research and masterful storytelling. It confirms Gideon Haigh as not only our finest cricket writer, but one of our best writers of non-fiction. In painting this bigger picture of our past, The Brilliant Boy allows us to think differently about our present and future.' (Publication summary) 

'As enigmatic in life as in death, Mollie Dean was a woman determined to transcend. Creatively ambitious and sexually precocious, at twenty-five she was a poet, aspiring novelist and muse on the peripheries of Melbourne’s bohemian salons – until one night in 1930 she was brutally slain by an unknown killer in a laneway while walking home.

'Her family was implicated. Those in her circle, including her acclaimed artist lover Colin Colahan, were shamed. Her memory was anxiously suppressed. Yet the mystery of her death rendered more mysterious her life and Mollie’s story lingered, incorporated into memoir, literature, television, theatre and song, most notably in George Johnston’s classic My Brother Jack.

'In A Scandal in Bohemia, Gideon Haigh explodes the true crime genre with a murder story about life as well as death. Armed with only a single photograph and echoes of Mollie’s voice, he has reassembled the precarious life of a talented woman without a room of her own – a true outsider, excluded by the very world that celebrated her in its art. In this work of restorative justice, Mollie Dean emerges as a tenacious, charismatic, independent woman for whom society had no place, and whom everybody tried to forget – but nobody could.'  (Publication summary)

'Victor Trumper (1877-1915) was our first internationally recognised cricketing genius, acclaimed by the legendary W.G Grace and others, who died at 36 in 1915. He has entered Australian sporting folklore and is still one of the great names in sport, with a stand named after him at the SCG. Trumper is a figure that has long held intrigue for Australia's favourite cricket writer, Gideon Haigh. In Trumper, he takes the phenomenon and specific focus of Trumper and particularly a famous, groundbreaking photograph of him by Englishman George Beldham preparing to drive to ask a much larger set of questions. Haigh argues Trumper changed the way cricket was perceived and played in a way that reflects on Australia's relationship with England, the start of the 20th century (photography, marketing, professionalism) and eternal themes of sport and beauty. In the spirit of Simon Wincester, he explores the relationship between Trumper, the photograph, the game, the country and its people.'