Bookmark This: from Queen Victoria to Twin Peaks – November's Literary Highlights
By Stephanie Convery, Lucy Clark and Steph Harmon
Light and Shadow: Memoirs of a Spy’s Son by Mark Colvin (MUP) Mark Colvin is renowned for his current affairs work on ABC Radio, and his influence on the national broadcaster over the past four decades cannot be understated. While he was coming of age as a journalist, however, he learnt that his father was working as a spy for MI6. The secret changed his life. Light and Shadow is both Colvin’s memoir and his own investigation into one of his most personal and yet unknowable influences: his father. Available now. Crimes of the Father by Thomas Keneally (Vintage) Crimes of the Father by Tom Keneally (Vintage) It’s a sad fact of humanity that abuse in the church is a perennially timely subject, but Tom Keneally’s latest novel seems to be particularly well timed with the ongoing royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse. Keneally’s story explores faith, marriage, celibacy and the Catholic church through the story of Father Frank Docherty, an excommunicated priest who returns to Australia and finds himself privy to stories of abuse by a now-senior cleric. A dramatic wrestle with conscience – and pursuit of justice – follows. Available now. Signal Loss by Garry Disher (Text) Photograph: Text Signal Loss by Garry Disher (Text) Garry Disher’s Australian crime fiction is as prolific as it is highly decorated. His crime writing has twice received both the Ned Kelly award for best crime novel and the German crime prize. Signal Loss is the seventh in his Peninsula Crimes series, set in Victoria’s moody and lush Mornington peninsula. This time around Inspector Hal Challis finds himself investigating an ice epidemic, while his colleague Ellen Destry tracks a serial rapist. One for the summer holiday reading stack. Available now. The Secret Cold War: The Official History of ASIO 1975–1989 by John Blaxland and Rhys Crawley (Allen & Unwin) The Secret Cold War: The Official History of Asio 1975–1989 by John Blaxland and Rhys Crawley (Allen & Unwin) In this third volume of a three-part series on the history of the Australian spy agency, John Blaxland and Rhys Crawley focus on the end of the cold war and confirms long-held suspicions that Asio was infiltrated by Soviet spies. As Katharine Murphy noted in October: The new history asserts conclusively the organisation was infiltrated and says it is possible that many of Asio’s operational efforts during the 1970s and 1980s were compromised through revelations to the Soviets. However, the book does not say how much damage was done with Blaxland, an Australian National University historian, saying the cost was “virtually impossible to measure”. Blaxland said the new history contained redactions, which he termed “pixellations”, and he said negotiating those was “a challenging exercise with Asio staff”, and necessitated “robust” discussions. Soviet infiltration has been a matter of allegation and reportage for many decades. Available now. All for my Children by Sally Faulkner (Hachette) All for My Children by Sally Faulkner (Hachette) “If your kids were taken from you, would you do anything to bring them home?” asks the question on the cover of All for My Children, by Sally Faulkner, who hit the headlines in April when she and a 60 Minutes crew were arrested after a failed attempt to retrieve her children from her estranged husband in Lebanon. Faulkner says this is the book she had to write so her children know that she never stopped trying to bring them home, and it’s just in time for the Christmas retail rush. Available now. Murder at Myall Creek by Mark Tedeschi QC (Simon & Schuster) Murder at Myall Creek by Mark Tedeschi QC (Simon & Schuster) The massacre at Myall Creek, in which 28 Indigenous men, women and children were murdered by convicts and former convicts in 1838, is infamous. Less is known about the sensational murder trial that followed and the hero of the case, John Hubert Plunkett, then attorney general of New South Wales. Senior crown prosecutor Mark Tedeschi excavates the controversy that surrounded bringing Europeans to justice, recreates a sensational trial, and profiles a man credited with creating modern-day civil rights in Australia. Available now. Man and Beast edited by Andrew Rule (MUP) Man & Beast edited by Andrew Rule (MUP) A collection of essays about people and their relationships with animals, Man & Beast features a veritable who’s who of men in Australian arts and letters: comedian Shaun Micallef, actor William McInnes, and broadcaster Phillip Adams make an appearance, alongside the writers Don Watson, Jeff Sparrow, Tony Birch, John Birmingham, Liam Pieper and many more. While it’s not clear why we needed a book of essays about animals completely devoid of any female contributors, other than perhaps a very superficial nod to the book’s title. The assemblage of recognisable names nevertheless suggests some gems inside. Available now. Signed, Sealed, Delivered: Women of Letters edited by Michaela McGuire and Marieke Hardy (Viking) Signed, Sealed, Delivered: Women of Letters edited by Michaela McGuire and Marieke Hardy (Viking) Between Melbourne and New York City, the immensely popular Women of Letters salons (and the more gender-inclusive spin-off, People of Letters) have spawned a number of collections of missives since their humble beginnings in 2010. This forthcoming edition includes Annabel Crabb and Leigh Sales writing to each other, Em Rusciano penning a love letter to Madonna, Anthony Albanese apologising to his mother, alongside correspondence from Gillian Armstrong, Zoe Coombs Marr, Gillian Triggs, Lally Katz, Rosie Batty and many more. Available 28 November. Victoria: The Woman who Made the Modern World by Julia Baird (HarperCollins) Victoria: The Woman Who Made the Modern World by Julia Baird (HarperCollins) Alexandrina Victoria was crowned queen of the United Kingdom when she was just 18 years old. She would go on to defy expectations, reigning for 64 years with a quarter of the inhabitable world eventually in her kingdom – including 400 million subjects, and nine of her own children. The ABC journalist and commentator Julia Baird spent six years trawling through British and European archives for this biography of Queen Victoria, gleaning new insight into her public and private life – including a certain love affair with a certain servant after Prince Alfred’s death. “There are few subjects as wildly speculated about and poorly documented as Queen Victoria’s relationship with John Brown,” she writes in the book. “Most of the rumours are unfounded.” But trawling through the archives of the Queen’s doctor, Sir James Reid, Baird found an interesting and previously unpublished entry on a day in 1883 when he walked through a door to find them flirting. “Brown says to her, lifting his kilt, ‘Oh, I thought it was here?’ She responds, laughing, and lifting up her own skirt, ‘No, it is here.’” Who doesn’t love a royal scandal? Available now. Days Without End by Sebastian Barry (Faber) Days Without End by Sebastian Barry (Faber) Sebastian Barry’s latest novels have been part of a broader project exploring the lives of the families Dunne and McNulty across multiple books. It’s an undertaking that the Guardian reviewer Alex Clark called “one of the most compelling, bravura and heart-wrenching fictional projects of recent memory”. She continues: Days Without End, a fever dream of a novel that has much in common, particularly in terms of style, with Barry’s prize-winning The Secret Scripture, presents us with Thomas McNulty, who has crossed the Atlantic to rebuild his life. The traumatic chaos of what he has left behind in Sligo – his family dead from famine, his country ‘starved in her stocking feet. And she had no stockings’ – is more than matched by the horrors that he encounters in a US in the grip of self-creation, its expansionist violence underwritten by its adherence to the notion of manifest destiny. Available now. Another Day in the Death of America by Gary Younge (Faber) Another Day in the Death of America by Gary Younge (Faber) An average of seven children and teens are killed by guns in the US every day. In his new book, Guardian editor-at-large Gary Younge selects a random date – 23 November 2013 – and sets out to chart the stories of the 10 young people who were shot dead on that day. Gillian Slovo writes for the Guardian: Another Day in the Death of America is not a book about gun control: it’s a book about what has happened in a country where there is no gun control. And although all the victims were at the beginning of their lives, this is not a book about innocents gunned down. It is, instead, a gripping account of the conditions that turn so many of America’s powerless into victims. Available now. Get a Life: The Diaries of Vivienne Westwood by Vivienne Westwood (Serpents Tail) Photograph: Serpents Tail Publishers Get a Life: The Diaries of Vivienne Westwood by Vivienne Westwood (Serpents Tail) The last six years in the life of inimitable fashion designer and mother of punk, Vivienne Westwood, have been characterised by climate change activism, vehement political criticism, and of course, fashion shows – all in typical Westwood style. Get a Life compiles the outspoken Westwood’s diary entries over this period into one volume, not just providing a glimpse into the glamorous world of fashion, but in, the words of the woman herself, “art and writing, human rights, climate change, freedom”. Available now. Frantumaglia: A Writer’s Journey by Elena Ferrante (Text) Frantumaglia: A Writer’s Journey by Elena Ferrante (Text) The past month has been abuzz with speculation about Elena Ferrante’s real identity, which makes this month’s publication of her reflections on writing even more significant. Lisa Appignanesi writes: This is a fascinating volume, as ever beautifully translated by Ann Goldstein. At times, it is as absorbing as Ferrante’s extraordinary fictions and touches on troubling unconscious matter with the same visceral intensity. For those who can’t wait for the next Ferrante fiction to sink into, it provides a stopgap. There are perhaps one or two interviews with wordy interviewers too many. But occasional repetitions are outweighed by the insights into Ferrante’s writing process, her love of story above the fine, polished style so prized in contemporary Italian fiction. This is not Ferrante’s only book out this November: children’s picture book The Beach at Night (illustrated by Mara Cerri) gives even very young children the opportunity to catch Ferrante-fever. Available now. The Ethical Carnivore by Louise Gray (Bloomsbury) The Ethical Carnivore by Louise Gray (Bloomsbury) What would it be like to only eat animals that you had killed yourself? This is the premise that underpins The Ethical Carnivore, Louise Gray’s account of her personal journey through a year eating only the animals that had died by her own hand. Steven Poole calls it a “very likable and often eye-opening book”: “I realise I have a message,” Gray announces at the end of the book. “It is this: you don’t have to kill animals yourself, but you should go to the effort to find out where they come from.” Fair enough. Doing so, she believes, will “naturally encourage” us to eat less meat. So what do you call this sort of diet? The word “flexitarian” sounds to me like a commitment to eat only animals that practised yoga while alive. Gray just calls it “the human way to eat”, but this does unfortunately imply that the great unwashed masses who like to scoff a dodgily sourced kebab after midnight are somehow less than human. Available now. The Chemist by Stephenie Meyer (Hachette) The Chemist by Stephenie Meyer (Hachette) Author of the highly successful Twilight series, Stephenie Meyer’s work thus far has been found primarily on the young adult shelves, even as it has gained a large adult audience the world over. But as Michelle Dean reported for Guardian in July, “The Chemist represents a pivot for Meyer towards adult fiction, as this book will be her first to feature an adult protagonist.” The Chemist follows a former secret agent on the run from her employers, who is offered a way out only to find herself facing down an even more deadly threat. Available 8 November. The Secret History of Twin Peaks by Mark Frost (Macmillan) The Secret History of Twin Peaks by Mark Frost (Macmillan) Twin Peaks is one of the most obsessed-over and indulged-in television shows of the 20th century, and co-creators David Lynch and Mark Frost’s forthcoming miniseries, which will continue the narrative left hanging 25 years ago, is one of the most anticipated television events of 2017. Until then, fans have Frost’s book to keep them sane. As Sarah Hughes writes: The Secret History of Twin Peaks … purports to provide “access to all of Agent Cooper’s files and tapes” and presents detailed backgrounds for many of the show’s best-loved characters, from perpetually weeping sheriff’s deputy Andy Brennan (Harry Goaz) to the log lady (Catherine E Coulson, who reportedly filmed scenes for the new series before her death last year). “I wanted to deepen the world of the show and place its origins in historical and mythological context,” Frost says, adding that it felt like the right time to expand on the show’s wider world. Available now. Christmas Days: 12 Stories and 12 Feasts for 12 Days by Jeanette Winterson (Jonathan Cape) Christmas Days: 12 Stories and 12 Feasts for 12 Days by Jeanette Winterson (Jonathan Cape) One of the UK’s most beloved novelists, Jeanette Winterson has turned her hand to Christmas stories, full of ghosts, mistletoe, animals and Yuletide magic. The 12 stories are accompanied by 12 festive recipes including turkey biryani, sherry trifle, mince pies and more. It might not be the next Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, but perhaps it could be considered the literary equivalent of a Christmas album by your favourite crooner. Available 14 November. Swing Time by Zadie Smith (Hamish Hamilton) Swing Time by Zadie Smith (Hamish Hamilton) Claire Armitstead writes: One of Zadie Smith’s most undersung qualities is her musicality (she briefly considered a career in musical theatre and is an awesome jazz singer). In her first novel since 2012’s NW, Smith puts music centre-stage in the story of two friends whose shared childhood dream of being dancers takes them in very different directions. Ranging from north-west London to west Africa, it promises to combine a study of friendship with a meditation on music, rhythm and time. Available 15 November.
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