This, the first major study of Xavier Herbert’s literary journey, is a superb work of scholarship. It is written with passion, good humour and a clear acknowledgment of the faults, both personal and literary, of its subject. Sean Monahan is an enthusiastic admirer of Poor Fellow My Country (1975). According to Monahan, it is not only the quintessential Australian novel, but also ‘one of the great novels of world literature’ – an enthralling yarn as well as a symbolic vision of the difficult path to racial reconciliation. Above all, he says, it is an illuminating picture of a whole culture.

Monahan sets out to redeem the reputation of Poor Fellow My Country and to examine the ‘long and winding road’ that leads to it: the crude melodrama of the early stories; the well-deserved success of Capricornia (1938); and the abysmal failures of the 1950s. How could the creator of Capricornia, with its sustained brilliance, proceed to Soldiers’ Women (1961) and ‘The Little Widow’, and believe, as Herbert apparently did, that they were works of genius? Monahan examines these failures as precursors to the great stylistic triumph that is Poor Fellow My Country.