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Jane Sullivan

Jane Sullivan is a literary journalist and novelist based in Melbourne. Her latest book is a bibliomemoir, Storytime (Ventura Press, 2019).

Jane Sullivan reviews 'Never Mind about the Bourgeoisie: The correspondence between Iris Murdoch and Brian Medlin 1976–1995' edited by Gillian Dooley and Graham Nerlich

May 2014, no. 361 29 April 2014
If you’re a bookish type of a certain age, chances are you went through your Iris Murdoch period. You binged on novels such as The Black Prince (1973) and The Sea, The Sea (1978); you immersed yourself in her world of perplexed, agonised souls searching for meaning, falling disastrously in love with absurdly wrong people, consoling themselves with a swim or a madrigal singalong. It’s less like ... (read more)

Jane Sullivan reviews 'The Love-charm of Bombs' by Lara Feigel

June 2013, no. 352 27 May 2013
My mother-in-law often spoke fondly of the Blitz. I had visions of her as a plucky young woman cycling down the bombed streets of London, going to work as a secretary to the stars of show business, enjoying ridiculously cheap hotel meals, and in the evenings going out on the town with an exciting boyfriend – perhaps a Turkish admiral, perhaps the man she later married. It always sounded as if sh ... (read more)

Jane Sullivan reviews 'Martin Amis: The Biography' by Richard Bradford

May 2012, no. 341 24 April 2012
I once had a vague fantasy that Martin Amis and I should get married. He was cool and handsome, and we had so much in common. We were about the same age; we had both read English at Oxford. My father worked as a cartoonist at the New Statesman when Martin was literary editor. I was mad about books and writing; Martin, in his early twenties, was already a famous novelist. Perfect match. ... (read more)
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