BARBARA SANTICH Wild Asparagus, Wild Strawberries: Two years in France. Reviewed by Jeannette Delamoir
A charming gastronomic memoir of two years in France from Barbara Santich, Wild Asparagus also creates a multi-dimensional portrait of a country on the cusp of political and social change. On New Year’s Day, 1977, Barbara Santich and her husband John jetted from...
LOUISA DEASEY A Letter from Paris. Reviewed by Jeannette Delamoir
In this search for her father, Louisa Deasey affirms the value of love, generosity, and – crucially – encourages thinking about what a successful life really is. Louisa Deasey’s father, Denison Deasey, died when she was a child. With only one photograph of them...
BRIOHNY DOYLE Adult Fantasy: Searching for true maturity in an age of mortgages, marriages and other adult milestones. Reviewed by Ashley Kalagian Blunt
We have arguably privileged lives yet we feel close to desperation – the paradox at the heart of Briohny Doyle’s Adult Fantasy. I grew up through the 1980s and 90s believing the mantra of you can do anything. As I hastily finished an undergrad...
ROSIE WATERLAND Every Lie I’ve Ever Told. Reviewed by Jessica Stewart
Rosie Waterland gives a clear-eyed reckoning of her life in this new memoir. In Every Lie I’ve Ever Told, Rosie Waterland tells stories from her ruptured childhood – first laid bare in her 2016 memoir The Anti-Cool Girl – interlacing them with intelligent, wickedly...
CASSIE LANE How to Dress a Dummy. Reviewed by Robin Elizabeth
How to Dress a Dummy speaks frankly of Cassie Lane’s battle for acceptance and will ring bells with many women. Cassie Lane is a former international model with a Masters in Creative Writing, but seems to be best known in Australia for dating AFL player Alan...
JILL ROE Our Fathers Cleared the Bush: Remembering Eyre Peninsula. Reviewed by Bernard Whimpress
Our Fathers Cleared the Bush is a captivating combination of regional history and memoir. ‘When I say I come from Eyre Peninsula, I am sometimes met with a blank look,’ wrote the late Professor Emerita of History at Macquarie University, Jill Roe, in opening her first...
CAROLINE BAUM Only: A singular memoir. Reviewed by Shelley McInnis
Baum’s memoir is replete with examples of emotional deftness of the highest order. I have very much enjoyed Caroline Baum’s published essays, and it is a delight to see two of them appearing as familiar landmarks in this big map of a memoir. One, entitled...
BRENTLEY FRAZER Scoundrel Days: A memoir. Reviewed by Annette Hughes
Scoundrel Days takes the reader into each unfolding moment of Frazer’s getting of wisdom. Brentley Frazer has changed names in this memoir to protect the privacy of particular individuals, but every word of it rings true. Children who grew up in far north...
ROBBI NEAL After Before Time. Reviewed by Suzanne Marks
Robbi Neal has captured a truthful, no-holds-barred and deeply sensitive range of Indigenous Australian experience. For seven years from 2008, Robbi Neal and her family lived and worked in a Cape York Aboriginal arts community. There, Neal heard the narratives of six...
JOHN HILL On Being a Minister: Behind the mask. Reviewed by Bernard Whimpress
On Being a Minister is an ideal primer for the political class. We’re in election mode and it’s a long campaign. Plenty of politicians (aspiring and actual) are waiting to be either elected or re-elected. I think of one of my all-time favourite political quotes from...
MICHAEL WILDING Growing Wild. Reviewed by Inez Baranay
Growing Wild is the entertaining and instructive memoir of a writer and publisher who always took notice, and always took notes. If you’re starting your writing and publishing life in 2016, can you quite imagine how different things were before the tsunami of...
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