AustLit
Latest Issues
Contents
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Fondue Memories of Oz,
single work
review
— Review of Swinging Safari 2018 single work film/TV ;'Swinging Safari is one of the funniest movies I have seen in recent times. It is also one of the saddest. That sharp edge goes, I think, to what writer and director Stephan Elliott has in mind with this semi-autobiographical satire about 1970s life in beachside Australia. It is a bittersweet reflection on the decade that time and taste forgot, to paraphrase the narrator, whom we meet as a kid interested in making movies.' (Introduction)
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Trio of Authors Packs a Punch,
single work
review
— Review of Take Three Girls 2017 single work novel ; A Semi-Definitive List of Worst Nightmares 2017 single work novel ; Unrequited 2017 single work novel ; Sparrow 2017 single work novel ; Wilder Country 2017 single work novel ; Nevermoor : The Trials of Morrigan Crow 2017 single work children's fiction ; The Extremely Inconvenient Adventures of Bronte Mettlestone 2017 single work children's fiction ;'The following books each contain something unexpected.' (Introduction)
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Travels with an Aunt Take a Thrilling Turn,
single work
review
— Review of Sign 2018 single work novel ;'After a failed laryngectomy to try to remove some cancerous lymphs, young Sam has a stoma, a hole, where his voice had once been. Rendered mute, he is shaken by the alienating experience, from diagnosis to hospital treatment to convalescence.' (Introduction)
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Civilisation Faces Tacit Test of Time,
single work
review
— Review of Dyschronia 2018 single work novel ;'Sam Warren wakes one morning to discover that her mother, Ivy, has broken into her house. It’s been years since Sam last saw her. Longer still since her mother walked out, 'saying she needed time, as if time wasn’t everywhere, seeping into every crevice'.' (Introduction)
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The Potent Allure of False Hope Based on a Big Lie,
single work
review
— Review of The Woman Who Fooled the World : Belle Gibson's Cancer Con 2017 single work biography ;'There can be few individuals in Australia detested more bitterly than Belle Gibson. The fake cancer sufferer and charity fraudster enjoyed a meteoric rise to international fame and fortune as a “wellness” guru. Her spectacular ascent was followed by an equally rapid descent into infamy after her hurtful and damaging scams were exposed in 2015.' (Introduction)
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Driven by an Irresistible Urge to Write,
single work
review
— Review of A Free Flame : Australian Women Writers and Vocation in the Twentieth Century 2018 multi chapter work biography ;'Is it possible to give one’s life over totally to an artistic vocation? Are love and life competing allures or are they the necessary fuel fanning the flame, as Mervyn Peake’s epigraph, which signposts this book’s theme and title, seems to suggest?' (Introduction)