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AbstractHistoryArchive Description
'One Sunday night in Sydney, Robert Dessaix collapses in a gutter in Darlinghurst, and is helped to his hotel by a kind young man wearing a T-shirt that says FUCK YOU. What follows are weeks in hospital, tubes and cannulae puncturing his body, as he recovers from the heart attack threatening daily to kill him.
'While lying in the hospital bed, Robert chances upon Philip Larkin's poem 'Days'. What, he muses, have his days been for? What and who has he loved – and why?
'This is vintage Robert Dessaix. His often surprisingly funny recollections range over topics as eclectic as intimacy, travel, spirituality, enchantment, language and childhood, all woven through with a heightened sense of mortality. ' (Publication summary)
Notes
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Dedication: To Susan Varga and to the sixty years of our friendship.
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Other Formats
- Large print.
Works about this Work
-
What I’m Reading
2016
single work
column
— Appears in: Meanjin Online 2016; -
Meditations on Life, Death and Quest for Enchantment
2015
single work
column
— Appears in: The Advertiser , 3 March 2015; (p. 24) -
Robert Dessaix : What Days Are For
2015
single work
review
— Appears in: The Newtown Review of Books , March 2015;
— Review of What Days Are For 2014 single work autobiography -
Rolling Downhill
2015
single work
review
— Appears in: Sydney Review of Books , March 2015;
— Review of What Days Are For 2014 single work autobiography -
Robert Dessaix's New Memoir
2014
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , December no. 367 2014; (p. 21)
— Review of What Days Are For 2014 single work autobiography
-
Heart of the Ineffable
2014
single work
review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 8-9 November 2014; (p. 19)
— Review of What Days Are For 2014 single work autobiography -
Joyous Journey Drawn from a Hospital Bed
Restoration Man
2014
single work
review
— Appears in: The Sun-Herald , 16 November 2014; (p. 16) The Canberra Times , 16 November 2014; (p. 26)
— Review of What Days Are For 2014 single work autobiography -
Good Ways to Be Old : Dessaix Looks Back
2014
single work
review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 6 December 2014; (p. 41) The Saturday Age , 6-7 December 2014; (p. 33)
— Review of What Days Are For 2014 single work autobiography -
Robert Dessaix's New Memoir
2014
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , December no. 367 2014; (p. 21)
— Review of What Days Are For 2014 single work autobiography -
Rolling Downhill
2015
single work
review
— Appears in: Sydney Review of Books , March 2015;
— Review of What Days Are For 2014 single work autobiography -
Meditations on Life, Death and Quest for Enchantment
2015
single work
column
— Appears in: The Advertiser , 3 March 2015; (p. 24) -
What I’m Reading
2016
single work
column
— Appears in: Meanjin Online 2016;
Awards
- 2016 shortlisted Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature — Award for Non-Fiction
- 2015 shortlisted Tasmania Book Prizes — Margaret Scott Prize
Last amended 27 Feb 2020 14:53:38