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Jeff: The rise and fall of a political phenomenon by Tony Parkinson

by
October 2000, no. 225

Jeff: The rise and fall of a political phenomenon by Tony Parkinson

Viking, $45 hb, 471 pp

Jeff: The rise and fall of a political phenomenon by Tony Parkinson

by
October 2000, no. 225

Political biographies are renowned as being notoriously difficult to write. Given the peculiar role of authorisation this is not surprising. The ‘authorisation’ – the act of writing – of a political biography is diminished and crowded out by a subject who not only defines the work’s content, but can literally refuse to authorise the text. In this context, Tony Parkinson’s biography of Jeff Kennett, Jeff: The rise and fall of a political phenomenon, runs up against a subject who is particularly adept at controlling the manufacture of his personal and public self. Parkinson’s biography is unauthorised, but has survived its subject’s scrutiny.

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