Editorial

As the year comes to a close I feel some clichéd compulsion to review ABR’s progress. Our place in the literary magazine market is assured due to the fine editors who have preceded me. There seems to be an increased awareness of ABR out there among the general reading public and this is verified by our increased sales. Of course, our position has been enhanced by a general push to bring the book out of the study and into the world. ABR’s circulation increase has certainly been assisted by the hard work of Dinny O’Hearn’s Book Show (SBS, Wednesdays at 8pm) and the continuing and comprehensive Books and Writing program produced by Robert Dessaix (Radio National, Sundays at 7.25 pm and Mondays at 3.05).

I don’t usually reply to Letters to the Editor, but … Since this lot (see opposite) is particularly atrabilious, a lovely word I have just learned from Don Anderson, I feel moved to make a few mild replies. Ken Gelder and Gerard Windsor are big boys now and can look after themselves, but I will say that John Carroll’s is the only negative response I have seen or heard to Windsor’s June Self Portrait (there were lots of positive ones, although Gerard did get a tad upstaged by his small son). I should also like to point out to John Carroll that Norman Mailer was reduced to his correct proportions years ago (‘brought down’, if you will – funny how Mailer’s name irresistibly suggests these metaphors of detumescence) by an assortment of immortal feminists who most certainly do not need any help from me, and as far as I am concerned the basic difference between Norman Mailer and John Hooker is that John Hooker is a serious human being. If I did indeed take a tone of unbecoming admonition, it seems to me that John Carroll has caught it; there’s a lurking sub-text to his letter best expressed as ‘Naughty girl, silly girl, stop it now or Daddy will smack.’