Wayne MacAuley

Care and compassion, a fair go, freedom, honesty, trustworthiness, respect, and tolerance. These were the nine ‘Australian values’ that former Liberal Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson demanded be taught in schools, especially Islamic schools, across the nation in 2005. How? ...

For a work that deals heavily with culinary aspirations, it is going to be hard to review Wayne Macauley’s brilliant new novel The Cook without reference to Masterchef, so let’s get it out of the way early. This year, after each new episode of the television show aired, the assorted snark-addled wits of the Fairfax press gathered online to do their mocking work. The mechanics of the show were pulled apart, and the comments section soon filled with the matching-set echoes of disdain and mockery. Filling their prose to breaking point with jokes – it wasn’t a sentence unless it tried to get a zinger away – the gathered souls confessed, through their sneers, that the show was nonetheless utterly compelling viewing.

How to review a book that includes, as major characters, Simpson and his donkey, the Dig Tree, and a bus that may or may not be a tram?

Now you won’t believe this one, but I’ll tell it anyway. There was a man, a roof tiler, and he was happily married to a woman called Nicole who worked part-time as a nail technician; they had three kids: Nina, Aiden and Jess....