‘And dogshit wrapped in neat little plastic bags. Does that drive her crazy? Yes it does. That people should take something natural, waste, feces (sic), the end product of an animal process, and seal it in plastic for future archaeologists to unearth from landfill in a thousand years is pure madness. This world. This skewered and doomed world.’

TC (Thomas Coraghessan) Boyle is one weird geezer. He looks weird and from all reports, behaves weirdly too – an eccentric, perhaps, with his slick looks and flamboyant dress. This professor of literature, for the University of Southern California, is well known around the traps for the equally flamboyant readings he gives. He’s a latter day Dickens.

He’s pushing up towards seventy now, this oh-so-cool dude, with a literary legacy that will mark him, in future years, not only as a one-off, but also a true great of turn of the millennium literature. He has been described as a maximalist novelist – one who eschews the simplicity of style advocated by many notables of last century – the warriors who put the American Dream into print. We are now in a new age, a complex age, with Boyle reflecting that. He is as flamboyant in his prose as he is in everything else – but here’s the rub. Although the reader may not have discovered previously in print a whole plethora of the magical sounding words he divines from who knows where and litters his oeuvre with, we know immediately their meaning – no need to go rushing off to dictionaries. It’s all explained in the context. He is amazing, his output so varied in narrative, but always so seductive in reeling the reader into each novel’s web.

And ‘When the Killing’s Done’ is no exception. The opening paragraph to this opinion piece on the tome is of an Alma Boyd Takesure rumination on one of her early morning beach perambulations. And it is a pet (pun intended) peeve of mine, this nonsense of wrapping up canine crap, particularly when it’s taken to the ridiculous extreme, such as on our island’s gorgeous beaches. Here dogs may be permitted to run as free as the breeze, just as long as we follow the firm instructions on some rusting signage to clean up after them – with bags conveniently provided. On Bondi I see the point, but on our strands, where humans are rarely in mass numbers, it’s quite frankly ridiculous.

Alma is an environmental fixer-upperer of islands, those set in that same archipelago, off the Southern Californian coast, as Boyle’s subsequent offering, ‘San Miguel’. She works for the National Parks Service, tasked with clearing those isles of their feral populations, restoring them to pristine condition. But to her arch-enemy, Dave la Joy, any form of culling is an anathema. He’s a rabid greenie – as far left in that activist grouping as it’s possible to be. He will stop at nothing to protect every living organism on those islands, come hell or high water – and the latter figures prominently. He does not stop even at introducing fresh feral species to confound Alma and her crew. At first I read this character with disbelief. Could there be people around so madly fervent in their obsessions as to be unhinged? His main squeeze, Anise, a child of the islands, seems to put up with him almost to the end – I suppose it helps that Dave isn’t a short of a crust, being a successful businessman, owning a chain of profitable stores. But such is Boyle’s skill in the telling, in an odd way, I ended up liking this cove who obviously wasn’t the full shilling. He’s one of the author’s more out-there creations.

Even if the ending of the book didn’t unravel in the direction it seemed to me to be heading, in that sanity is eventually restored (not really a spoiler), it didn’t seem to detract. Boyle claims he places immense thought into the conclusions to his tales, but is open-minded about them till he actually gets there – or so he says. This could have gone either way.

Boyle is not a mega-seller here, although some of us may have seen the movie version of his ‘Road to Wellville’, based on a cereal king. Nonetheless he is well worth a library borrowing just to get a taste of what this unique wordsmith is all about.

TC’s website = http://www.tcboyle.com/

This fourth compilation of epistles in the ‘Women of Letters’ franchise (the editors may well hate that term) is now not only an Australian phenomenon, but is spreading its wings internationally as well. Hardy and McGuire sold out NYC, which now has monthly performances, with a tour of their concept also completed of the UK. What started out as a small time effort to raise a bit of dough for a local animal welfare charity has captured hearts all around the nation. I was in a Hobart audience a while back and the duo had the format down pat. It was a night of laughter and tears. If one of their live performances comes to a venue near you, do make the effort to attend.

The volume in question – there has been an international edition since – has all the faults of its predecessors – there are still the try-hards and still some drivel. But overwhelmingly most letters contained within speak from the heart, some even quite intimate in nature. The editors have by now reached the conclusion that part of the reason for the success of these books, as well as their live source, is that, in letters, there is a sense of safety not present on social media. The shows have a rigorous no recording policy and the readers involved all need to give permission for publication. The audience for both would not be the milieu for trolls in any case, I would have thought.

The edition in question is bookended with poignancy. First cab off the rank is the magnificent Stella Young, composing a letter to her octogenarian self – ‘By the time I get to you I’ll have written things that change the way people think about disability. I’ll have been part of a strong, beautiful movement of disabled people in Australia.’ And arguably, along with the marvellous ‘The Last Leg’, she, at thirty-two, already has. Sadly a few weeks after publication of this book our gorgeous advocate for crips – her word, not mine – died suddenly. Very early on in the history of ‘W of L’ she had forthrightly stated that the organisers had better find a wheelchair-friendly venue for the live version or face her wrath. The two convenors did so immediately and the spirited Stella became a firm friend of the pair.

The closing letter was by former Greens senator Christine Milne. Once upon a time I was a friend during her uni years and for a time we shared a school staffroom on Tassie’s North West Coast. Her letter was to her former students at Devonport High School and it centred on a book that is very close to my family’s heart – Paul Gallico’s classic ‘The Snow Goose’. My beautiful sister Frith derives her name from that tale.

There was much else to enjoy, such as Chrissie Swan’s encounter with a woman breast feeding in a suburban shopping mall. She was dressed in a bear suit with a flashing neon sign attached to her head warning, ‘Boobs Ahoy’. I love Spiderbait’s drummer Kram’s relating of how the ‘House Husband’/’Play School’ host, Rhys Muldoon, came to be pashing Axyl Rose’s girlfriend at a Melbourne concert of the Gunners. Leading the way for Muslim women in their fight against sexism and for their right to be heard, Susan Carland writes emotively about her love for her son now and into the future. Columnist Amanda Blair, whose mother once tried to match her up with Martin Bryant on a blind date, muses on how much simpler life was for women back in the day – or was it? Angie Hart’s letter to her unborn child is a heart-breaker and I found out two facts about Poh that I didn’t know. One is, would you believe, she’s almost forty. The other is that she is not beyond dropping the f-bomb (but it’s okay, she uses it in describing some cretinous troll). Jess McGuire writes of her totally ‘annus horribilis’, but in doing so demonstrates how even the most dire of circumstances can have an upside. Guitarist for our beloved Go-Betweens, Adele Pickvance, writes engagingly on the difficulties involved for a Brit adjusting to life in Oz. And lastly, in my resume of ‘Between Us’ highlights, is the story of how Sommer Tothill’s life was turned around by the true narrative of her Uncle Rolly’s demise.

There is much, much else to recommend this penultimate addition to the ‘W of L’ list of titles and I bet, once you’ve devoured this glorious omnibus, you’ll be hankering for the other four. Now I think I might take up my pen and write a snail mail missive of my own to my good mate….

Women of Letters website = http://womenofletters.com.au/

Up front is passion. Never over-rated but can be debilitating in some circumstances. Time mutes and love transforms. Attachment is under-rated, comfort being a negative – and there is much to recommend it. Of course there are multitudinous variations on the core, but one factor is known – if it’s out of synch then it can invite disaster.

Jenny Offill is the first to admit that this slight, in volume, book of hers should be a hard sell. ‘If someone described this novel to me, I would never had read it.’ the author tells one interviewer. It is a potpourri, an amalgam of fragments in the form of musings, random facts and quotes from the great wordsmiths the author obviously admires. Interspersing all this are micro-vignettes on the course of a marriage. Each small chapter is akin to a string of pearls – each oyster-spit shone to a sheen and in the whole, strangely relevant.

It takes a while to pick up the rhythm, but once that is cottoned on to this slim, not autobiographical, not a memoir, entrances. So much features – from the black dog to battles with parasitic bugs to the exploration of outer space.

A best seller in the US, it’s raised hardly a ripple in Oz against the ‘Gone Girls’ and ‘Girls on a Train’ overload – but Offill can hardly credit her success Stateside. Her last novel for adults was before the turn of the millennium. ‘Dept. of Speculation’ had a very long gestation, with the author filling in the gap with her teaching and well received picture books.

The novel is a mini-treatise on motherhood, wrangling a wayward husband and how, for women, it is impossible to become an ‘art monster’ ie devote oneself entirely to one’s writing to the rejection of all else. Men, it is claimed, have the luxury of doing this with no roadblocks whatsoever.

The two parties involved in this rendering are, for a time, out of synch. In recording their journey there are lessons to be discerned for all floundering relationships. This small tome swims against the tide in more ways than one and is well worth the effort to track down. On my daughter’s recommendation I am so glad I went to that effort. Thank you Katie.

Jenny Offill’s web-site = http://jennyoffill.com/

This 2006 novel is this reader’s first by Andrew O’Hagan. Hopefully it will not be the last. Essentially it is a three-parter; the first two sections building to a shattering finale in the last. By the time that presents itself I had succumbed to being so hooked it was unputdownable until the whole sorry story had played out to the last page.

Glaswegian AO’H was born in 1968 and is a graduate of the University of Strathclyde. By ’91 he was on the staff of the ‘London Review of Books’ and four years later published his first fiction product, ‘The Missing’. It and subsequent tomes have been nominated for all sorts of gongs including the Booker and Whitbread. This work won the Los Angeles Times Prize for Fiction in 2008. ‘Be Near Me’ has also been adapted as a play. O’Hagan has written and presented a television series on Bobbie Burns for the Beeb and has dabbled in writing for the stage. This guy has serious literary chops.

In the first part of ‘Be Near Me’ the scene is set. We meet 56 year old Catholic priest David Anderton, newly transferred to a tough Ayrshire parish, but we find he is half-hearted and somewhat removed from his duties. He seems disappointed in his calling but unable to release his mind from the need to be succoured by the church. Anderton has the necessary feeling for his flock, but struggles to make a connection with them. He is, above all, hungering for something more – the type of relationship he once had way back when – one that is no longer is possible given the constraints he labours under. He is lonely. In this fragile state of mind he is ready for an ‘adventure’ before it is all too late. That enters in the form of street savvy teenagers, feisty Lisa and charismatic skateboarder Mark. Very soon he finds himself part and parcel of their escapades, occasionally the ringleader. For a while we are unsure which one will bring him down as we are in no doubt this flirtation, with the dark side of the real world, cannot end well.

Now we’ve ascertained the situation he is in and which of the duo brings him to grief, we backtrack onto a different path. The author takes us to the tale of the love of the priest’s life and the event that caused him to fully turn to his god and the celibate way.

Once that has been conveyed we return to Father David’s fall from grace. Although it is debatable whether he committed the crime in the true sense of the accusation, the priest knows, had it all played out as he intended, he would have done so. Ergo he places self-imposed barriers to escaping what is about to befall him. We wonder if there’s an ultimate price to pay.

As he travels down his path to self destruction we see the strength and loyalty of the women in his life – Lisa to some extent, his novelist mother and his ill-married house-keeper, a vital cog in the case against him. They are all wonderful creations as characters, as is the latter’s deeply flawed spouse who is somewhat the hero of the piece.

I do not know where in the Bible Jesus preaches that to fully serve the god he believes in one has to enter a life devoid of sexual intimacy with another. If he did, then that is at variance with the Jesus I know. Of course, for many, like our main protagonist, being human they fail to measure up and as a result the Catholic church is now in deep do-dos. Once litigation takes over in the aftermath of the various enquiries, commissions and investigations in place world-wide, the institution may well be bought to its knees financially. To me it is an inhumane and self-defeating imposition and O’Hagan glaringly, as well as artfully, presents the troubled face of all this. Even though we look at Anderton as foolhardy for taking one last stab revisiting what he experienced so long ago, we can all relate to his fundamental need.

This is an important book.

Every book, it goes without saying, is important to its author. I suspect for John Larkin this is the most important book he’s written – perhaps the most important he’ll ever write. We get a hint why with the knowledge that it took him three years to get the manuscript to a stage he was happy to submit for publication. We receive another indication when we read its dedication – firstly to his children ‘.., the brightest stars in the darkest night.’ and then to his wife ‘.., for helping me to find my way back into the light.’

In January 2012 Larkin had a complete breakdown and was admitted to a psychiatric hospital. He describes it as ‘…an awful time in my life.’ He left with an ambitious goal for what was to become this novel. He wanted his words to give hope. He wanted it to save lives. This scribe has no doubt that, in the hands of those who need it most, ‘The Pause’ will indeed save lives. For some those words will be the most important they read in their short, to date, existence.

The book deserves a wider audience, as well, for it shows that even when the darkest thoughts envelope one – so dark that the ultimate price is contemplated, a pause to think, if only for an instant, can drive that destructive urge away. It demonstrates that always, always there are silver linings up ahead.

Coming at it with adult eyes this is far from the perfect product. Clichés abound as do annoying repetitions (every laugh to be had was snorted). The structuring may not work comfortably for some – particularly those who have managed to keep the black dog at bay. I doubt Larkin’s effort will make a gong’s short-list on literary merit alone. But it is not written for those who are able to look back, but for those unable to see a way forward. This book contains something far more important than literary perfection. It speaks to vulnerable young people, many of whom may be despairing, in a way that connects. Despite its dark themes, it engages in a manner that is downy light, infused with a humour that makes it immensely readable. It is a page turner. ‘The Pause’ does not shy away from the barriers to happiness that life puts up, but demonstrates that most people have their hearts filled with goodness and they are here to help. In a country, such as Australia, there are plenty of safety nets when the path ahead seems only to be filled with potholes leading to an abyss. ‘The Pause’ asks that these good souls are looked to for support, for this is a novel full of the possibilities of life.

Its two central characters have a deep and abiding love for each other, despite their terrible situations, past and present. Its no spoiler to say that, against incredible odds, love wins out. It’s beside the point whether Declan paused or not before he took that plunge. What is important is the journey he went on after the event.

From my own experience, after forty years in the public education system, I know how important library workers are in schools. Libraries are the refuge of the vulnerable. Therefore those adults in there are the front line in many cases, often taking on the role as counsellor as well as providers and organisers of resources. As I’ve noted before, these are the people who will know which of their flock would benefit from having this important, uplifting YA book directed their way. Through them John Larkin will succeed.

YouTube trailer = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkDGRqbOXBI

Yes, mistakes were indeed made and semi-novice wordsmith Pieper outlines them in fine humorous fashion in his collection of four essays for the Penguin Specials series. You too can read all about this fellow’s misdemeanours by shelling out a cheap ten bucks at your nearest quality book store.

Who knew that trying to secrete one’s person behind a compliant steed to escape the predations of a whacked-out ageing hippy priestess would cause a doctor to scream in horror? Who knew that selling dope to your alternate lifestyle parents as a teenager, then writing about it, would be enough to force a person to flee the country? Who knew that attempting to enter the good ol’ US of A with the book telling that tale would almost get a person, courtesy of US Customs, on the next plane home? Who thought that inviting mad dog Geoffrey into a person’s life as an act of kindness would cause such mayhem to ensue? The crazy canine, for me, steals the show completely.

On a more serious side, implicit in Pieper’s musings are the vagaries of the writerly life.

But this small volume is a delight from cover to cover – and as such will be recycled through family and friends. The notion behind the Penguin Specials are that the books in the series can be read in one sitting. I’m never one to thrust what I have enjoyed on others unless I know the territory well. My hope is this works in reverse as well. Some know my predilections well and I am always happy to receive their recommendations, but when I feel obliged to work my way through a thousand page tome out of friendship, I can have a miserable time in doing so. I am always loathe to offend and cannot say no – so I am wary of doing the same. But in this case there are no issues and I’ll recommend it to all and sundry. I cannot imagine anyone failing to be amused by Pieper’s yarns which are, as he puts it, ‘…a kind-of-sort-of sequel’ to his first publication, ‘The Feelgood Hit of the Year’ (Penguin). I am now keen to get hold of this. I only hope we see much more in book form from this talented communicator despite the scrapes that doing so may lead him into.

Liam P’s website = http://liampieper.com/about-me/

‘A few years ago a friend of mine travelled to Vermont, in the United States. After taking in the panoramic views, she noticed an ice-creamery. She went in and joined the queue.
There, standing two metres away, was Paul Newman.
She thought to herself, ‘Oh my god, that is Paul Newman,’ (as you would) ‘I am standing two metres away from Paul Newman.’
She bought her ice-cream cone and walked out onto the veranda to take in the view. There he was eating an ice-cream.
‘Beautiful day,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ she said.
They both looked out for a bit more and then she said, ‘Oh, what have I done with my ice-cream?’
He said, ‘It’s in your handbag.’

I love that anecdote – seven degrees of separation and all that (or far less in this account) – between author Rayson and the great and famous. Newman is by far the top of the pile of celebrities name-checked in ‘Hello Beautiful’. But we also find out that she and hubby (arts media personality Michael Cathcart) stay at Paul Cox’s French idyll when in that part of the world; that she is related to a former teacher who advised Cate Blanchett that fronting a class in the future would be far a better use of her talents as she was clearly never going to make it as a thesp and that on her business card, apart from name, comedienne Wendy Harmer has simply ‘Adventuress’.

To be quite honest Hannie Rayson had never been on my radar until recently. Had I been a frequenter of major city theatre productions I would have been more attuned to her prominence in that field. I know of an earlier work of hers through the resulting movie adaptation, ‘Hotel Sorrento’. But this book was all over that once Melbourne broadsheet and the Oz. Several amusing extracts in those convinced me to shell out for her tome.

Yarra City critic Cameron Woodhead describes it as follows –It’s a book of beautifully crafted, free-flowing vignettes that illuminates with warmth and humour and some urbanity the paradox of an artist who’s relatively well-adjusted and ordinary, and the contours of the intimate relationships that formed her.’ A few of these vignettes fall flat through being a little too forced in the humour department, but overwhelmingly she had me chortling away more often than not. Added to this levity there are reality checks such as miscarrying whilst in the process of interviewing, as a young journalist, icon Arthur Boyd at his home and the intensely intimate tale of a worrisome mole on her vagina. I related to her as a member of the select club that also features my own lovely lady – they both pride themselves in finding parking, without fail, immediately outside every destination – and the author does it in Melbourne! Poor Michael – or MC as he is lovingly referenced in the book – and yours truly have to invariably park several clicks away and commence walking. Her tale of her experience at ‘Wally Groggin’s Golden Mile of Used Cars’ also hit a nerve. This time she has it, in common with your scribe – we’re both complete and utter incompetents with anything to do with automobiles. In our relationship Leigh is the car-savvy one. And back in my old stomping ground up north, Burnie also boasted its ‘Golden Mile’ of used cars, at Cooee. Wanting to update my old banger, in lieu of Leigh who had already decamped to Hobs, I took along friend Keith. I quickly spotted a sporty number – sleek green and streamlined I seem to recall – and figured that I would look very nifty indeed behind it’s wheel. I think it was my one and only attack of the Peter Pans. Thankfully Keith, with the words, ‘You’d kill yourself in that thing Steve’ was able to bring me back to reality and we ended up with a serviceable but very boring Mondeo. With her mate Mark along in similar support, Rayson was protected from any dodgy dealer who’d figure he’d get one over the little woman. There’s also the delightful tale she tells of fellow wordsmith Carrie Tiffany, entering a book store to buy a copy of her own award winning (and excellent) ‘Mateship With Birds’, has the Gen Y person behind the counter advise her not to bother with it as it is a shit read.

It seems Hannie Rayson wrote this memoir as an antidote to some recent career setbacks with several of her plays she’d invested much sweat in being underwhelming at the box office, or even failing to get up for staging. For one, I trust that this lovely and seamlessly readable trip down her formative years in the less sophisticated Victorian capital of the fifties, sixties and seventies – and then beyond to the multicultural metropolis it is today – will not be a one-off. Her work is as addictive as McInnes at his best and I was thoroughly enchanted by her ‘not so ordinary life’.

The Two of Us – Hannie and Michael = http://www.smh.com.au/good-weekend/two-of-us-michael-cathcart-and-hannie-rayson-20150220-12l96d.html

The Oz on Hannie = http://www.theaustralian.com.au/arts/review/playwright-hannie-rayson-recalls-her-not-so-ordinary-life/story-fn9n8gph-1227259658172

With a name culminating in Freud one would suspect the fifty-one year old British author may have an interesting lineage – and one would be spot on. Yes, she is the great-granddaughter of the game-changing psychoanalyst and the offspring of artist Lucien. Growing up, she didn’t know all this, only getting to know her father, notoriously anti-family, as an adult. Esther would then often pose for him, sometimes for his nude studies. Her mother, commencing at eighteen, spent a few short years with the then thirty-eight years old dauber, providing him with two offspring. He had fourteen known in all to a variety of women. Her sister Bella is an acclaimed fashion designer. Before Freud senior passed on he’d read and advised on all of his daughter’s literary oeuvre to that point – so he did mellow in later years – her first being what she is best known for, ‘Hideous Kinky’. Her latest is ‘Mr Mac and Me’.

Charles Rennie Mackintosh is now recognised as Scotland’s greatest architect. In some quarters his triumph, the Glasgow School of Arts, is regarded as the UK’s most perfectly planned edifice. As well, he was a painter and designer – Britain’s most notable contributor to the Art Nouveau movement. Behind every great man…and Charles had his Margaret, a fellow artist who has only recently emerged from his shadow. He considered his wife a genius and her influence on his own style beyond measure.

Although Mackintosh died in 1928, he, Margaret and Esther F are unified by the fact that they all spent/spend part of their lives in the village of Walberswick on that part of the Suffolk coast that was/is crumbling into the briny. One village building was prominent in linking the trio – the Anchor Inn. It houses Esther and her husband, actor David Morrissey, when they come down from their other home in North London. And for a time, back in the day, it also housed the architect.

At one stage in his career Charles left the security of an established firm to strike out on his own. Due to the tough economic times in the lead up to the Great War, his ambitions were thwarted, the business failed and he retreated to Walberswick, a known haven for artists. There he licked his wounds. In 1915 he was caught up in anti-German hysteria and arrested as a spy. It was not done to be wandering the strands at night with lamp and binoculars. He and his muse stayed on in the seaside location until 1923, after which they decamped to France. They returned to London, he in desperate health, one year before his death.

So it is perhaps apt that my only concession to the hoopla that is going on with the centenary of an event that occurred on the Turkish coast is that I have read this gently moving novel of life in a British coastal village. It’s also set one hundred years ago. Being Suffolk, though, the souls that feature in Freud’s loving tome can hear the cannon fire from across the water. Their closeness to Flanders require the townsfolk to billet soldiers en route to the slaughter fields and house some of the poor Belgian civilians fleeing the same. And yes, Zeppelins pass overhead to launch mayhem on the capital, as Thomas Maggs, the club-footed son of the publican reports – ‘I run with the airship back across the beach, up over the dunes, following it along the street and past the church. If there was someone on the flat roof of the tower, then I could shout to them and they might, just this once, jangle their bells or, better, aim a rifle at it, but there is no-one in the church yard, only my family of starlings, keeping watch over our grave.’

Soon, though, the blimp is indeed shot down, giving the novel a few pages during which the pulse quickens. For the rest of it the narrative clips along at a more sedate pace, being not in the least less engrossing for that.

Its story is relayed to us through the voice of the boy Maggs. For a while he is wary of the stranger he comes to call Mr Mac and his activities in town. The two come together through a love of drawing, with eventually Thomas becoming a part of the furniture in the Mackintosh residence. Margaret has to spend much time away for family and health reasons with the lad becoming the conduit via which letters are transferred from Mac’s hand to the post office. As the author’s means for us to peruse the actual correspondence between the two devoted artists, Ms Freud has her youthful protagonist steam them open and read, before resealing and sending them on their way.

Of course there is much else going on in young Magg’s world other than Mr Mac’s trials and tribulations. There’s his father’s alcoholism and the developing feelings for the herring girl who comes down from the Scottish Isles each season to gut the ‘silver darlings’. There’s his sister’s love life and illness to worry about. There’s also stormy sea rescues, as well, to get involved in.

The New York Times describes Esther Freud as ‘A superbly gifted writer.’ This mere scribbler can but concur. Little of huge import occurs in ‘Mr Mac and Me’ – but it is still a wonderful homage to life as it once was. At times it is tough and uncompromising as Thomas battles his lameness to be all things to those who rely on him. At times there are paragraphs of utmost tenderness – the artist’s devotion to getting his sketches of the local flora just right, the dash Margaret must make down from London to free her befuddled, perplexed husband away from the arms of the law. It’s all terrific stuff from a wordsmith who warrants a higher profile in these parts.