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y separately published work icon Australian Book Review periodical issue  
Alternative title: ABR; Indigenous Issue
Issue Details: First known date: 2019... no. 413 August 2019 of Australian Book Review est. 1961 Australian Book Review
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Contents

* Contents derived from the , 2019 version. Please note that other versions/publications may contain different contents. See the Publication Details.
Soldiers, Patrick Allington , single work review
— Review of Bodies of Men Nigel Featherstone , 2019 single work novel ;
'From its raw and revelatory prologue, Nigel Featherstone’s novel Bodies of Men offers a thoroughly humanising depiction of Australians during World War II. In telling the story of two soldiers, William – too young to be a corporal – and his childhood friend James, Featherstone reflects upon the brutality, drudgery, and absurdity of war but also on the two men’s love and regard for each other: ‘The private smiles and William allows himself to smile too. Something passes between them: a wish, or an echo, or something beyond a soldier’s imagination.’' (Introduction)
 (p. 55-56)
Don't Feel Sorry About Iti"Don't feel sorry about it, if you remember", Robert Harris , single work poetry (p. 57)
A Night at the Opera, Deborah Cheetham , single work autobiography
'It’s such a vivid memory. I’m sitting in the carriage of a train, travelling from Caringbah to Oatley. It’s a Saturday afternoon late in January and I am returning home after a morning of competition tennis. The members of my team, Gilmour 5, have gone their separate ways after another successful start to the year. It is 1979 and for the past two years we have won our grade undefeated, having reached the pinnacle of Junior comp tennis. I am not yet fourteen. Being a Sagittarius, born in late November, I have the best part of a year to compete as an Under 14 in the many fiercely contested junior tennis tournaments that take place all year around Sydney. Tennis is my world, doubles my specialty. This year I have my sights set on the Illawarra Lawn Tennis Association Under 14 singles title.' (Introduction)
 (p. 62)
[Review] Wake in Fright, Tim Byrne , single work review
'The idea of the outsider is, of course, a concept shared by all living beings; the jellyfish and the silverback gorilla alike have trained themselves to distrust a stranger. But there is something particular about the Australian suspicion of otherness, a ruddy and avuncular mask that hides an abiding, almost pathological, wariness. It’s a national quirk that Kenneth Cook’s 1961 novel Wake in Fright – set in the fictional town of Bundanyabba, and based on the author’s experiences in Broken Hill – so memorably mined, and one that playwright Declan Greene milks to almost uncanny effect in his new stage adaptation.' (Introduction)
 (p. 63)
[Review] The Torrents, Susan Lever , single work review
— Review of The Torrents Oriel Gray , 1955 single work drama ;

'Anyone with an interest in Australia’s drama history is likely to have some curiosity about Oriel Gray’s play The Torrents, joint winner of a Playwright Advisory Board prize in 1955 alongside Ray Lawler’s ground-breaking Summer of the Seventeenth Doll. Unlike Lawler’s play, it was not performed at the time. According to the current producers, it has had only one other professional production before this current version by Black Swan Theatre in Perth, which has reached Sydney after seasons in Perth and Brisbane.' (Introduction)

 (p. 66)
[Review] Whiteley, Michael Halliwell , single work review
— Review of Whiteley Justin Fleming , 2019 single work musical theatre ;

'Unlike the many films about the lives of artists, operas in which visual artists feature are few, though two of the most popular in the repertoire, Puccini’s Tosca and La Bohème, both have painters as central characters. The lives of artists are often messy affairs and resist convenient shaping into narrative arcs, with the actual creative process difficult to dramatise effectively. The new film Never Look Away, by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, controversially, though loosely based on the life of German artist Gerhard Richter, achieves a remarkable degree of success in showing the development of a creative artist, often actually at work on a series of paintings, while a panoramic sequence of events play out in the background. It is one of the few films that offer a plausible insight into the creative process.' (Introduction)

 (p. 68)
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