AustLit

'Ahead of meeting songwriter Don Walker for today’s cover story, I finally got around to reading his 2009 memoir Shots, about which I’d heard plenty of good things but for which I had never set aside the time. Its fine reputation is entirely accurate: the book is a hypnotic piece of work unlike anything I’ve read before, thanks to an addictive writing style that favours long, flowing sentences with minimal punctuation. It shouldn’t work, really, but it does, because Walker is not the sort of bloke to waste a word, either on the page or in person.' (Introduction)

'In 1986, director Richard Lowenstein made a terrific movie about the lives of young people living in the Melbourne suburb of Richmond. Sam, the principal character in Dogs in Space, was played by the lead singer of INXS, Michael Hutchence, and he gave a flawless, immensely charismatic performance in the role. Oddly enough, Lowenstein’s excellent new documentary on his friend, Mystify, doesn’t mention Dogs in Space at all, and nor does it touch on Hutchence’s qualities as an actor. Apart from that rather curious omission, Mystify is a detailed and revealing portrait of a gifted musician whose apparently charmed life ended tragically.' (Introduction)

'Lenny Bartulin hopes his latest novel, which spans the globe over a century, will draw people together, as he tells Stephen Romei.'

'JM Coetzee’s Disgrace is a novel that has earned admiration and provoked dismay.'