Letters to the Editor

Dear Editor, I have often wished that more of the letters to the editor would comprise interesting debate or comment on literary matters. Sadly, about ninety-five percent of them are responses by furious authors to what they perceive as an unfavourable review of their book. While boring, such letters are at least understandable as being the output of wounded childish egos. Not understandable, and in fact unethical and unforgiveable, are attacks by publishers on reviewers, such as happened a while back when Fremantle Arts Centre Press rushed into prolonged print via your letters to criticise Dr Ivor Indyk for having unfavourably reviewed one of the many collections of verse by John Kinsella which Fremantle has pumped out over the last few years. In this respect, the letter from Mike Shuttleworth (ABR, February/March issue) was refreshing in that, while once again it was a public flogging of a reviewer, at least it was from neither an author nor a publisher. Last time I met Mike, he was, in fact, working in the Fremantle Arts Centre bookshop which no doubt accounts for his familiarity with titles published by that press. Moran’s book, Massacre Myth has been reviewed in several national papers and journals, sometimes favourably, sometimes not. I neither thank nor abuse reviewers. So the only comment I will make about Christopher Bantick’s review (ABR, Dec/Jan.) is that he does clearly state, ‘In some previously published material ... received opinion is that there was a massacre.’ He does not need to list the titles of the ‘previously published material’. It is Moran’s book he is reviewing. Moran himself gives a comprehensive bibliography of sources consulted which includes previously published works (twenty-one books, six journals, eight newspapers, three unpublished theses and a draft unpublished manuscript) most of which present a contrary point of view to his own conclusions. Historians do not have to agree. I felt that Bantick covered this adequately in the final paragraph of his review. However, the impetus to write came not from Shuttleworth’s inaccurate attack on the review but from his extraordinary comment that Moran was ‘unable to find a mainstream publisher for the book’. So far as physically isolated Western Australia, with its small population, is able to sustain a mainstream publisher, Access Press and Hesperian Press qualify. These are the two big unsubsidised independent publishers in this state. (There are a number of smaller independent publishers producing one or two titles a year.) Others who would qualify as mainstream publishers are Magabala Books, specialising in Aboriginal authors, University of WA Press and Fremantle Arts Centre Press, all three heavily subsidised. Past publications by Access Press include a winner in the poetry section of the WA Premier's Awards, two runners&shy;up in The Age Book of the Year Awards (Full Fathom Five by Albertus Bain, translation rights sold to the Japanese Government, and France Australe by Professor Leslie Marchant, translation rights sold to the French Government), Us Fellas, Aboriginal writings anthology assisted by the Australia Council, The Children’s Friend Society (child migration) sold in Canada, South Africa and the UK, Whitefellers are Like Traffic Lights by Harry Reade, prestigious case bound (and leatherbound) autobiographies of Sir Laurence Brodie Hall (Western Mining) with a foreword by Sir Arvi Parbo and Mr Justice James Muirhead, Judge in the Lindy Chamberlain trial and Chairman of the Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, a novel by well known actor/director/playwright Edgar Metcalfe and, most recently, a work on the process of dying praised by Frank Devine of the Australian. I could continue but believe that the above is a sufficient sample to indicate that, though our output is small and limited by lack of any kind of subsidy, we publish fourteen to sixteen titles a year; we are indeed mainstream. We distribute our own books dealing nationally with a total of thirty Angus & Robertson stores, eighteen Collins stores, twenty-one Dymocks, most o fthe University Co-op Bookshops in all states, library suppliers in all states and 120 assorted bookshops (Gleebooks, Blackbooks, Mary Martin etc.). A surprising number of our earlier books are listed at high retail prices in the Australian Book Collector price list widely used by the trade along with Australian Books in Print. From all this, Mike Shuttleworth, if he is still working as a bookseller, should be fully aware of the status of Access Press as a mainstream publisher. But then perhaps he is not working in a mainstream bookshop! Helen Weller, Managing Director Access Press Dear Editor, I’m not sure if John Docker was trying to be funny in his review of The Australian Century: Political struggle in the building of a nation (ABR, Feb/March 2000) – even if he wasn’t, his review is possibly the worst I have ever read. His smarmy style tells me plenty about John Docker but disappointingly little about the book itself. If John disagrees with the way the essays in this volume are selected or written, he should explain why, rather than the farcical attempt at satire he has produced here. It is unfortunate that his ‘review’ appears in the same issue as some good reviews, such as those by Richard Hall and Andrew Scott. I hope John reads them and can understand why I felt moved to write this letter. Roger Clark, Hawthorn, Vic.

From the New Issue

God and the Angel: Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier’s tour de force of Australia and New Zealand by Shiroma Perera-Nathan

The Shortest History of Italy by Ross King

Forbidden Desire in Early Modern Europe: Male-male sexual relations, 1400-1750 by Noel Malcolm

Appreciation by Liam Pieper