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A good salesman

by
February 2006, no. 278

Frank Hardy: Politics, literature, life by Jenny Hocking

Lothian, $39.95 hb, 310 pp

A good salesman

by
February 2006, no. 278

In reading a biography of Frank Hardy, it is almost impossible to separate the man, as subject, from the work for which he is famous, the novel Power Without Glory (1950) based on the life of John Wren. If I did not want to reach for my gun every time I hear the word ‘icon’ these days, I would say that this novel still has iconic status in Australian culture. The title is a pithy reworking of Graham Greene’s novel The Power and the Glory (1940), about the ethics of a Catholic priest in southern Mexico. Like Greene, Hardy was driven by a quasi-religious commitment, but for him it was a lifelong commitment to the Communist Party of Australia (CPA) rather than to Catholicism.

Frank Hardy: Politics, literature, life

Frank Hardy: Politics, literature, life

by Jenny Hocking

Lothian, $39.95 hb, 310 pp

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