AustLit

This essay attacks Russel Ward's construction of male Australian identity in that locus classicus of debate, the turn of the century. Joy Hooton spotlights three authors of biographies, self-confessed Australian products of the 1890's who reproduce themselves through the medium of the text - My Life Story, Arthur Lynch (London, 1924); Comedy of Life, Lionel Lindsay (Sydney, 1961) and Naught to Thirty-Three, Randolph Bedford (Sydney 1944). Hooton explores the myth in this highly specific context, uncovering male anxieties and the suppression of issues of land, gender and race. Hooton adds George McIvers', A Drover's Odyssey, which is an exception to the myth, so further complicating an already problematised field. -- Livio Dobrez - introduction (edited)