Fifty years after the Dismissal, Gough Whitlam: the Vista of the New, by Troy Bramston, is the first full biography of Whitlam since his death in 2014. Bramston had access to previously unavailable material, personal and archival, and interviewed more than 100 people (including Whitlam, many times). The result is a nuanced biography that celebrates Whitlam’s personal attributes and policy and legislative achievements without glossing over his shortcomings. He portrays a man of deep conviction, dedicated to social justice reform, but with limited interpersonal skills and a reluctance to take advice. His blow-by-blow description of the circumstances leading to the Dismissal is especially riveting.
Quentin Bryce: the Authorised Biography, by writer and journalist Juliet Rieden, tells the story of how a woman raised in rural Queensland, the first girl from her school to go to university, forged a brilliant career, culminating in her becoming Australia’s first female governor-general. Bryce married young, had five children in quick succession, and, with the support of her architect husband Michael, worked as a legal academic before taking on senior leadership roles, including as sex discrimination commissioner and governor of Queensland. Rieden portrays a hard-working, family-centred woman with a passion for social justice – especially for women and Indigenous Australians, who called her “Pretty Teeth”.
Drusilla Modjeska’s A Woman’s Eye, Her Art is a biography of a group of talented women artists working in Europe in the early 20th century. German painter Paula Modersohn-Becker ran away from her family and domesticity to paint in Paris; the gender-fluid Claude Cahun produced revolutionary Surrealist photography; Lee Miller (once Man Ray’s lover) and Dora Maar (once Pablo Picasso’s lover) cast off their roles as muses, emerging as talented artists in their own right. Drawing connections between the women’s lives and their art, Modjeska explores how they defied convention to produce art that continues to inspire contemporary women artists.
Peacemaker, the biography of Burmese diplomat U Thant, the third secretary-general of the United Nations, by his grandson, historian and writer Thant Myint-U, will appeal to anyone interested in the turbulent geopolitics of the 1960s. Thant, secretary-general from 1961-71, played a critical role (acknowledged by President John F. Kennedy) in the resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. He was less successful in his attempts to end the Vietnam War, and resolve disputes in the Middle East, and his efforts caused tension with the United States. This biography portrays him as an optimistic, idealistic leader who championed the rights of newly independent African and Asian states in their battle against colonialism.
Elizabeth Harrower, whose (highly acclaimed) novels include The Watch Tower (published here in 1977) and In Certain Circles (2014), may be the best Australian writer you’ve never heard of. Susan Wyndham, former literary editor of The Sydney Morning Herald, brings her out of the shadows in The Woman in the Watch Tower. Wyndham interviewed Harrower several times before the latter’s death in 2020, before excavating the archives and conducting multiple interviews to uncover the story of this deeply private woman whose friends included Patrick White and Christina Stead. Wyndham interweaves the story of Harrower’s personal life with a close analysis of her work, which explores subjects such as domestic abuse, the impact of childhood tragedy, and tempestuous family relationships. An important contribution to Australia’s literary history and a great read.
Oliphant, by Australian writer and historian Roland Perry, is about Australian nuclear physicist Mark Oliphant. He (with others) discovered how to build an atomic bomb and then persuaded the British and the Americans to collaborate on the Manhattan Project, the secret program to build atomic weapons during World War II. Perry, who interviewed Oliphant many times, depicts a brilliant, persuasive man with a strong sense of self-belief, whose sole motivation was to defeat the Nazis. After Hiroshima, he experienced feelings of guilt and became involved in anti-nuclear protests and advocacy, which led to him being refused a US visa. A fascinating portrait of a complex and conflicted man.
Jacqueline Kent’s Inconvenient Women is a joint biography of a group of politically motivated Australian women writers working between 1900 and 1970. Some, such as Stella Miles Franklin, Eleanor Dark and Ruth Park, are well-known, others less so. Kent describes how they interwove their feminist, socialist politics into their fiction, tackling subjects such as interracial love, abortion, poverty and dispossession, often to their detriment – some had their books banned, others were subjected to ASIO surveillance. She pays special tribute to Indigenous writers Faith Bandler and Oodgeroo Noonuccal, who were instrumental in bringing about constitutional reform. A reminder that courageous writers can change the world.
John & Paul: A Love Story in Songs, by British journalist and (self-confessed) diehard Beatles fan Ian Leslie, is a deep dive into the relationship between John Lennon and Paul McCartney, starting with their first meeting in 1957 as teenagers and ending with Lennon’s murder in 1980. Arguing that the release of new material sheds new light on the popular “John versus Paul” dichotomy, Leslie, who calls their friendship a “love story”, charts its ups and downs via their songs. Drawing on his knowledge of psychology (he has written books about it), Leslie explores how and why these highly emotional men, who used their gift for songwriting so effectively to express joy and pain, complemented each other so well – until they didn’t.
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