AustLit

'The article discusses Frank Moor house who was an award-winning author, essayist and giant of Australian letters, whose Edith Campbell Berry trilogy – Grand Days, Dark Palace and Cold Light – was his masterpiece. His former partner Fiona Giles , whose relationship with Moor house was fictionalized in his novel Forty-Seventeen, reflects on the impact he had on her life.' 

(Publication abstract)

'MARLO IS ONE of those towns passed through on the way to somewhere else. In the 1950s, when Jay Carmichael’s new novel is set, towns like Marlo were small and, too often, small-minded. Ignorance, inexperience and self-absorption can live hand-inglove with the idea of “community”. Christopher, a young man from a farm, is not a good fi t in Marlo. He needs a place where he can breathe and with the help of his older sister he organises to move to the city, to Melbourne. Marlo opens with his arrival at the station, where, as all country children do, he calls his sister to tell her he’s arrived. He’s safe.' (Introduction)

'BOTH ELAINE AND her grandson, Joey, are lying to themselves. Elaine’s pokie addiction is one thing; she performs a delusional bargaining routine while feeding every cent of her pension into the machines each week. Joey’s numbers come up much faster and wreak more devastation; he is hanging out with mates and not-quite-mates, taking drugs, and they rape a young woman' (Introduction)