Writers Radio

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Gillian Dooley Book reviews and interviews for Writers Radio on Radio Adelaide. 'Writers Radio brings the best of Australian writing, both published and yet-to-be.' The program features regular reviews of the latest Australian novels and poetry.

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"Abaza" by Louis Nowra. [review - radio script]
(2002-05-11) Dooley, Gillian Mary
Louis Nowra’s novel "Abaza" is an appalling history of despotism and violence in a fictional Pacific island nation, told using the unusual format of an encyclopedia.
"Afterlife" by Donald Denoon. [review - radio script]
(2004-10-04) Dooley, Gillian Mary
It’s an old idea that the gods envy humans their mortality, with all its possibilities of ecstasy and intense experience. Donald Denoon plays with this idea in his novel "Afterlife", subtitled "A Divine Comedy". "Afterlife" is a genial, philosophical book. The hero, Geoffrey Kingston, dies and goes to heaven. Both these facts are unexpected: he is in the prime of life, and his conduct hasn’t been such that he expected to end up in heaven. But then, he didn’t think that heaven existed.
"All Things Bright and Beautiful" by Susan Mitchell. [review - radio script]
(2005-07-04) Dooley, Gillian Mary
Good versus Evil is the hook used to promote Susan Mitchell’s book "All Things Bright and Beautiful: Murder in the City of Light". Mitchell attended the trial of John Bunting and Robert Wagner, the two main perpetrators of the Snowtown killings, the worst serial murders in Australian history. She explores the role of social deprivation and endemic child abuse in the genesis of these particularly disgusting crimes. She wanted to find ‘the hidden underbelly to this city that I and many of its citizens either didn’t know about or simply refused to face.’ Mitchell’s thesis seems to be that Adelaide’s reaction to the Snowtown murders was denial.
"Bad Karma" by Tamara Sheward. [review - radio script]
(2003-08-30) Dooley, Gillian Mary
Tamara and her friend Elissa are backpackers who can’t stand backpackers. "Bad Karma" relates their three-week journey through mainland Southeast Asia. They storm their way through Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia, leaving a trail of cigarette smoke and obscenities. They reserve their worst invective for the other western tourists they meet.
"Blacktown" by Shane Weaver. [review - radio script]
(2003-11-21) Dooley, Gillian Mary
"Blacktown" is Shane Weaver’s autobiography about his tough childhood and growing up in working-class Blacktown, NSW.
"Bluestocking in Patagonia" by Anne Whitehead. [review - radio script]
(2003-08-16) Dooley, Gillian Mary
"Bluestocking in Patagonia" is not only a biography of Mary Gilmore’s six-year sojourn in South America. It is also a travel book. Whitehead visits the places where Gilmore lived, and alternates her own account with the historical narrative.
"The Bride Stripped Bare" by Nikki Gemmell. [review - radio script]
(2003-10-10) Dooley, Gillian Mary
Gemmell’s frankness is extraordinary, and, as she explains in her signed letter printed at the end of the book, anonymity provided the liberation she needed from all the forces which inhibit this kind of total exposure. "The Bride Stripped Bare" justifies her decision because of its honesty and vitality and its sheer quality. This is "The Golden Notebook" for the new millennium. Gemmell has done for women of this era what Doris Lessing did for women of the sixties.
"The Bus Driver Who Wanted to Be God and Other Stories" by Etgar Keret. [review - radio script]
(2004-04-12) Dooley, Gillian Mary
Etgar Keret is an Israeli writer. His specialty is short stories, some as short as four or five pages; mordant stories about death, life, and life after death.
"Call Waiting" by Dianne Blacklock. [review - radio script]
(2002-05-20) Dooley, Gillian Mary
"Call Waiting" is not a novel for those who are looking for surprises, or who dislike happy endings. It is an unashamed romance, with an orphaned heroine, bodice-ripping love scenes, and a healthy dose of contempt for city living and a prejudice in favour of the rural life – not the outback, just the safe area around Bowral, not too far from Sydney and shopping.
"Cecilia: An Ex-Nun’s Extraordinary Journey" by Cecilia Inglis. [review - radio script]
(2003-05-10) Dooley, Gillian Mary
This is the memoir of a not particularly remarkable life, told with sincerity, sentiment but little wit or real imagination. Cecilia Cahill was fifteen, the youngest of a large catholic family, when she had the vocation to enter the religious life.
"Deep Waters" by Andiee Paviour. [review - radio script]
(2005-05-04) Dooley, Gillian Mary
"Deep Waters", Andiee Paviour’s second novel, is the tale of a mismatched couple who fail their only son. It’s about the damage done by dysfunctional families.
"Desert Sorrow" by Tom Mann. [review - radio script]
(2003-09-12) Dooley, Gillian Mary
In 2000 and 2001, Tom Mann spent more than seven months, over the period of a year, as an education officer at Woomera Detention Centre. With only two other staff, he was responsible for all the teaching which went on at the Centre, including English classes for the adults as well as basic education for children of all ages. In his first stint in late 2000 there were only about 250 refugees, which represents merely an extremely difficult task. When he went back later for a six-month contract in 2001, there were up to 2000 people, and with few extra resources available it became nearly impossible to offer tuition to everyone who wanted it, much less to actively encourage those who were depressed and discouraged to attend classes. Tom Mann has now written a book, "Desert Sorrow: Asylum Seekers at Woomera". He offers many unexpected insights into life at the detention centre.
"Drip Dry" by Ilsa Evans. [review - radio script]
(2004-02-21) Dooley, Gillian Mary
"Drip Dry" is Ilsa Evans’ second novel – pretty much a re-run of the first, "Spin Cycle". Over the course of 365 pages she recounts the events of one week.
"Due Preparations for the Plague" by Janette Turner Hospital. [review - radio script]
(2003-06-09) Dooley, Gillian Mary
Janette Turner Hospital’s new novel "Due Preparations for the Plague" is gripping and compulsive reading, while at the same time being intelligent and erudite. She has used a formidable range of sources and references, both as epigraphs throughout the book and as parallels to illustrate the action. The plague has inspired works by Boccaccio and Daniel Defoe – the novel’s title comes from one of his works – and Albert Camus, all of which Hospital has drawn upon, and other epigraphs come from Shakespeare, Lewis Carroll and Jorge Luis Borges.
"Even As We Speak" by Clive James. [review - radio script]
(2002-05-11) Dooley, Gillian Mary
"Even As We Speak" is Clive James’s sixth collection of essays, and covers the broad range of cultural, historical and literary criticism we have come to expect. Reading James’s essays is rather like conversing with an old friend. Often what he says is riveting and eloquent, at other times it’s a bit tedious or facetious, and sometimes you wish he’d stop carrying on about a particular obsession you don’t share. But overall, it’s worth while spending time with him, and interesting to hear his views on almost anything.
"Fantastic Street" by David Kelly. [review - radio script]
(2003-10-10) Dooley, Gillian Mary
David Kelly, in his first novel "Fantastic Street", gives us an idea of the perils of standing out or being different in a conservative society. Also, perhaps, some of the thrills. The main character, Alex, spends his childhood as one of a diverse tribe of children living in various parts of Queensland. "Fantastic Street" traces the issues and emotions that Alex confronts throughout his less than conventional life.
"Feeling the Heat" by Pat Lowe. [review - radio script]
(2002-05-27) Dooley, Gillian Mary
"Feeling the Heat" is packaged as ‘Young Adult Fiction’ – for children 14 plus. It would be a pity if this put older adults off, though, since it is a sensitively written book dealing with subjects all Australians might find compelling – issues of race and belonging and growing up in Australian society.
"Fivestar" by Mardi McConnochie. [review - radio script]
(2005-08-20) Dooley, Gillian Mary
Mardi McConnochie is clearly keen not to be typecast as a novelist. Her first, "Coldwater", was a brooding gothic tale about a set of sisters with the same Christian names as the Brontes, living on a prison island off the east coast of Australia in the mid nineteenth century with their prison-governor father. Her second, "The Snow Queen", was about ageing ballet dancers in Adelaide in the 1970s, and now we have "Fivestar", a swipe at the pop music industry.
'The Fix' by Nick Earls
(Writers Radio, Radio Adelaide, 2011-09-24) Dooley, Gillian Mary
Review of Nick Earls' novel 'The Fix'.
"The Garden Book" by Brian Castro. [review - radio script]
(2005-09-23) Dooley, Gillian Mary
"The Garden Book" is the tragic story of Swan, the daughter of the first Chinese Ph.D. in Australia, a formidably erudite man who, in the xenophobia of the great depression years, is unable to keep even a job as a county school teacher and falls into a terminal decline. Swan, also highly educated, marries an Australian autodidactic misfit, Darcy Damon, former prisoner and sailor, who had encountered opium in his travels in China.

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