AustLit

'The Silvery Freedom ... and the Horrible Paws is the story of how DH Lawrence's 8th major novel, Kangaroo, was composed and written. The title refers to Lawrence's realisation - half-way through writing the book - that he had stumbled on a secret para-military organisation in Australia in 1922. "It was as if," he wrote in Kangaroo, "the silvery freedom suddenly turned, and showed the scaly back of a reptile, and the horrible paws."

'This is a story that many people and interests tried to prevent coming out. It reveals the fascist underbelly of post-WW1 Australian society and politics.

'It is the second volume of the author's Lawrence's 99 Days in Australia, which together tell the story of how the 20th-century's most controversial author came to write his most surprising work of "fiction".' (Publication summary)

'The Quest for Cooley is the story of the 40-year search for the identity of the real life figure that DH Lawrence portrayed as the Australian political leader Benjamin Cooley in his 1923 Australian novel, Kangaroo. Through his intensive research in Australia and overseas, Robert Darroch, a former investigative journalist on The Bulletin, discovered that Lawrence ran across an actual secret army in Sydney in 1922, and unmasked it in his novel of Australia. This is a story that many people and interests have tried to prevent coming out. It exposes the fascist underbelly - what Lawrence called "the horrible paws" - of post-WW1 Australian society and politics.' (Publication summary)

The Scaly Back of a Reptile and the Horrible Paws is the result of Darroch’s research into D.H. Lawrence’s weeks in New South Wales in 1922.