Accessibility Tools

  • Content scaling 100%
  • Font size 100%
  • Line height 100%
  • Letter spacing 100%

The author as shoehorn

by
December 2005–January 2006, no. 277

Crackpots, Ratbags and Rebels: A swag of Aussie eccentrics by Robert Holden

ABC Books, $29.95 pb, 240 pp, 0733315410

Book 2 Cover Small (400 x 600)

Up Close: 28 lives of extraordinary Australians by Peter Wilmoth

Pan Macmillan, $30 pb, 313 pp, 1405036575

The author as shoehorn

by
December 2005–January 2006, no. 277

We’re all interested in people; misanthropy is not trendy. Contemporary interest in people may be manifested by the success of reality television, the media coverage given to celebrities, and books such as these, which set out to investigate people and what makes them tick.

Robert Holden’s Crackpots, Ratbags and Rebels: A Swag of Aussie Eccentrics is a breezy trawl through a number of characters who appear to the author to fall into these eponymous categories and who, if not Australian (for example, Lola Montez), stake a claim by visiting the country. Holden gives potted biographies of figures ranging from those extremely well known nationally (Alfred Deakin, Percy Grainger, Daisy Bates) to local personalities such as Dulcie Deamer and Arthur Stace. Perhaps the book is too breezy. It would certainly have benefited from more careful editing. There is, for instance, no such thing as an ‘idea fixe’ or a ‘vade medum’; and for a man to be ‘literally hounded to death’ (an assertion irritatingly made twice), he must first be chased or attacked by literal dogs. It is a pity, too, that there are no photographs (or likenesses): this also applies to Up Close: 28 Lives of Extraordinary Australians.

Crackpots, Ratbags and Rebels: A swag of Aussie eccentrics

Crackpots, Ratbags and Rebels: A swag of Aussie eccentrics

by Robert Holden

ABC Books, $29.95 pb, 240 pp, 0733315410

Up Close: 28 lives of extraordinary Australians

Up Close: 28 lives of extraordinary Australians

by Peter Wilmoth

Pan Macmillan, $30 pb, 313 pp, 1405036575

You May Also Like

Leave a comment

If you are an ABR subscriber, you will need to sign in to post a comment.

If you have forgotten your sign in details, or if you receive an error message when trying to submit your comment, please email your comment (and the name of the article to which it relates) to ABR Comments. We will review your comment and, subject to approval, we will post it under your name.

Please note that all comments must be approved by ABR and comply with our Terms & Conditions.