Welcome to the October issue! The ABR Elizabeth Jolley Prize is now firmly established as one of Australia’s most prestigious and lucrative short story competitions. 1200 people entered this year. Our judges have whittled them down to a shortlist of three stories, and we publish them in the new issue. The winner will be announced at a ceremony in Sydney on 28 October. Otherwise, it’s a peak season for new fiction, and several major new novels are reviewed – Richard Flanagan’s The Narrow Road to the Deep North (James Ley), Alex Miller’s Coal Creek (Brian Matthews), Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam, and Roger McDonald’s The Following. In our Theatre column, Ben Eltham finds little to like in David Williamson’s new play, Rupert.
October 2013 no. 355
Peter Kenneally reviews 'Australian Love Poems 2013' by Mark Tredinnick
Some things just don’t appear to go together, unless you are good at puzzles. A fox, a goose, and a bag of beans, for instance; or maybe a wolf, a goat, and a cabbage. Then there are Australia, love, and poetry. Australians and poetry can’t be left alone together, can they, and don’t expressions of love ...
Kerryn Goldsworthy reviews 'MaddAddam' by Margaret Atwood
Kerryn Goldsworthy admires Margaret Atwood’s depth of intellect as revealed in MaddAddam, the concluding sequel to Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood.
Dennis Altman reviews 'Rendezvous with Destiny' by Michael Fullilove
Michael Fullilove, head of the Lowy Institute, has written about President Roosevelt and the men who helped him to guide the US so reluctantly into World War II. Dennis Altman reviews this model of academic research.
Jolley Prize 2013 (Shortlist): 'The Five Truths of Manhood' by Rebekah Clarkson
1. You are going to die
Malcolm has every reason to believe that he’ll be fine. The word ‘fine’ laps g ...
