Mark Roberts

Jenny Boult’s sixth book ‘I’ is a versatile character is also her first book of prose. It follows her play Can’t Help Dreaming which was performed by the All Out Ensemble in Adelaide, and four books of poetry, including The Hotel Anonymous, which won the 1981 Anne Elder Award. The stories in this collection vary greatly in form and content, but they share a particular ‘poetic’ style w ... (read more)

In the early seventies, the rock band Skyhooks asked ‘Whatever happened to the revolution?’ They answered themselves in the next line: ‘We all got stoned and it drifted away.’ Back in the early seventies it seemed that the rebellion of the sixties had resulted in something concrete. Whitlam was in power, the army had been withdrawn from Vietnam, the Australia Council had been established ... (read more)

I have often found myself feeling a little frustrated after reading a David Foster novel. While never doubting his ability as a writer, the convolutions of his narrative have, more than once, overshadowed his undeniably fine prose. His latest book, Hitting the Wall, a collection of two novellas, allows us the opportunity to examine how Foster handles the more urgent needs of this much shorter form ... (read more)