Fly Away Home – Jennifer Weiner

Sylvie Serfer has subsumed her life in service to her husband’s political career without any sense of sacrifice – the incessant calorie counting, tightly pinching shapewear, coloured and painstakingly straightened hair, never ending briefings and engagements, the secondary importance of her daughters to Richard have all been her willing contributions to their success. They’re a team, working toward a common goal since their college days thirty years earlier. That all changes in an instant, when Sylvie’s best friend Cecil breaks the news that, according to reports on every network, Richard has apparently had an affair with a staffer.
The news not only affects Richard and Sylvie’s lives but the lives of their very different daughters. Diana is a prototypical eldest child, high achieving and determined to have everything – marriage to a man who’ll never let her down, a well-raised child exposed only to healthy food and wholesome viewing, and a professional identity in medicine. From the outside she has everything, but her carefully constructed life was already cracking, and the one thing she really craves is no more likely than ever before – her parents’ unconditional love and attention. Lizzie could not be more different – from early adolescence she’s sought from drugs solace, absence and the filling of a soul-deep emptiness. Clean after her latest detox, Lizzie is managing to keep all her balls in the air and is caring for Diana’s son Milo, but therapy hasn’t managed to repair her past. The revelation of Richard’s affair acts as the catalyst for change, changed perceptions, and the revelations of secrets and truths for the whole family.
Fly Away Home is an engrossing novel that engaged me on several levels – a fan of TheGoodWife, I was interested in an exploration of what these scandals may be like on the inside, but it was Weiner’s characters that kept me turning pages. Richard is the closest to a cipher, for most of the novel acting more significantly as a catalyst than as a character. Diana’s losses of control and the tensions that cause is really well conveyed; LLizzie’s attempts at refashioning her life are admirable and feel real; and Sylvie is a complex character who, despite being betrayed, is no saint – her uxorial devotion to Richard has caused a profound emotional neglect of her daughters that created the strongest resonance for me. My only disappointment with Fly Away Home was that, except for Sylvie’s response to the affair and its related aftermath, there’s preciously little anger. This was most significantly the case with Lizzie, who I hoped would be able to give voice to feelings of betrayal and abandonment at events (and, more crucially, her parents’ responses to them) that clearly contributed to her life path, but Diana has been aware from a young age how much their childhoods were shaped around the father's career, their mothe's priorotising this over their best interets, and the expectation that follows them into adulthood, and isn't angry either.
I’ve enjoyed Weiner’s work since Good in Bed, though I've found her recent work somewhat mixed, and Fly Away Home (apparently written earlier and recently recrafted and updated for publication) delivers a similar combination of satisfyingly rounded and layered characters, intelligent and believable dialogue, and a compelling plot. - Alex

The Birthday Present - Barbara Vine

Married Tory MP Ivor Tesham is a rising star in the dying days of the Thatcher government. He also has a keen taste for bondage, and a long-standing affair with Hebe Furnal, the married mother of a young boy. To celebrate Hebe's birthday, in addition to the string of pearls her unaware husband won't be able to distinguish from the costume variety, Ivor sets the scene for the fulfillment of an elaborate fantasy - he hires two men to abduct and bind Hebe then transport her to his cousin's country home for a weekend of adventurous, role-playing sex. What could possibly go wrong?
The Birthday Present is narrated through a combination of Ivor's cousin Rob Delgado's reflections almost two decades later, and diary entries from Hebe's friend Jane, who often provided alibis for the affair. I read a review of the novel soon after its 2008 release, and it's been on my To Read list ever since.
It's significantly disappointing, therefore, that I found The Birthday Present so politically dense that I didn't even make it to the abduction, or even the first mention of it (which is only on page 32 in the copy I had). I didn't like Rob's voice, and that got in the way of my engagement with the text. The unheralded switch from his voice to Jane's diary was obvious by tone but not signalled, and I found that annoying, too. I'm hoping this isn't a sign of the month to come but just an indication of the depth of enjoyment the Seafort saga has provided, and the difficulty other novels will have in comparison. Watch this space! - Alex

First Lady - Susan Elizabeth Phillips

Cornelia Linchfield Chase is America's most perfect First Lady. She should be - from birth it's the role she was groomed for. But a life in the public eye, the nation's sweetheart from the time she was snapped at sixteen crying, a dying African child in her arms, has been stifling. When her husband, President Case, died Nealy mourned but she thought she was finally free. When she realises her politico father and the new President expect her to stay in the role, Nealy rebels. Disguised as an elderly tourist she escapes the White House and heads off on an anonymous adventure.
Mat Jorik is a man's man - the only boy and the eldest in a fatherless family of eight his whole life was nothing but nappies and drying nylons. Unemployed after leaving an increasingly tawdry anchor position, he hopes to return to his journalist roots. When he receives a legal letter informing him that his long-divorced wife has died, naming him the father of her two daughters, he feels dragged bag to the domesticity he tried so hard to escape. He scoops up the toddler and adolescent he knows are no kin of his and treks cross-country to deposit them with their grandmother.
You always know what you'll end up with when you read a romance - obviously Nealy and Mat are going to wind up together, along with the kids. As always, though, the journey is what counts, and with Phillips it's always a pleasure. The elements one expects from her work is here - well rounded characters, engrossing plot, romantic attraction and realistic dialogue, and the portrayal of both children is spot on.
First Lady's political component adds an interesting extra dimension - I'd not previously considered the pressure these scrutinised women are under, or the ordinary things they miss out on, and Phillips does a masterful job of portraying a woman with conviction, a strong sense of duty, and a need for relief. She also manages to avoid identifying which party Nealy's associated with - the only real life political figures mentioned are former First Ladies from both parties, and Nealy's own politics are "left wing here, right wing there, then middle of the road" as she steers clear of partisan politics in favour of the national interest. This aspect is an integral part of Nealy's character but doesn't drive the novel, so if you're disinterested in politics it won't affect your enjoyment. For me, though, in addition to the usual satisfaction I feel when finishing a Phillips novel I also felt inspired that a politician like Nealy might come along, here or in the US. - Alex

Country of the Blind – Christopher Brookmyre

The murders of media tycoon Roland Voss, his wife and two bodyguards in a country manor house owned by the government sent a wave of (tabloid-fuelled) rage throughout England. The manhunt for the four men responsible is fevered; when they escape from a prison van, killing three guards in the process, the press bay for blood.
Only Nicole Carrow, a junior lawyer, believes the men are innocent, based on an envelope she was given by one of them the week before the bunged robbery. It’s only thanks to the conspiratorial instincts of investigative report Jack Parlabane that Nicole escapes a cunning attempt on her life and, working together, Nicole and Jack begin untangling a complicated plot that involves the highest levels of government.
The second in the Parlabane series, Country of the Blind is twisted, involving and quite brilliant. The dialogue snaps, the twists are unpredictable (particularly the two surprising and supremely rewarding occasions when hunter becomes hunted), and the tense pace is ferocious.
Brookmyre’s writing is always inclined toward the political, and Country of the Blind is no exception – set in Major’s Britain there’s a decided leftward lean I related to; the main thrust is grounded in EU reform, with decided distrust of government and big picture ideology and politics. The pivotal plot point was both convoluted and believable.
As with other of his novels, Brookmyre sprinkles humour and realism throughout. I was reminded of my own, eighties era activist past when one character’s recollections of (Thatcherite-era) youthful activism brought back memories of one group falling out with another

“over some minute point of interpreted socialist principle, and the Labour Group got shirty with the Marxist Group about what slogans to put on their placards, and the Intergalactic Socialists for a Marxist Universe started a spat with the Vegan Organic Hamster Protection League…”

It could be possible to overdose of Brookmyre, which is part of the reason why I’m pacing myself. The other is that my library seems not to have the third Parlabane novel and so I’ll have to request it. Strong, clear, funny, clever – if I’m not careful Brookmyre will be my favourite author of the year again. - Alex

Rule No. 1 – Rupert Morgan

In a universe only slightly different from our own, the United States of Atlantis is still reeling from the Day The World Changed, when a sleeper virus caused the Stock Exchange computers to endlessly loop once the Exchange’s value hit 15,000 points. Perhaps the terrorists hadn’t expected quite as much damage – the overheating supercomputers caught fire, the knocked out computer system caused the sprinkler system to fail, and the stock exchange itself caught fire, killing hundreds. A worldwide manhunt soon discovered that the terrorists were hiding in the Middle Eastern country of Kalashnistan, and the Atlantian government declared war. “The Atlantians won. So they’d be crazy to stop now.”
Erratian beekeeper Saman Massoudi has troubles of his own. All he wants is to reinvigorate the honey market, and his Al-Nur Bee and Comb company, by increasing awareness of the delicious honey made by Jana bees. His cousin Aziz lives in Atlantis, and has mailed him some of the genetically modified bees they have there, though Saman’s not too impressed, particularly when the parcel of bees results in him being a suspect during an attempted assassination attempt on The General of Errat. As Saman tries to extricate himself from a mess caused by the wilful stupidity of those in power, who hear only what they want to hear, in Atlantis the media are heightening fear and anxiety.
A blistering satire about the War on Terror, Morgan captures many elements of contemporary life well, from the shortsightedness of non-sustainable farming to the impact of global policies on individuals, and the sacrifice of logic in favour of conspiracy and paranoia.
There are too many plot strands to discuss in detail, so I’ll give one example to showcase Morgan’s characterisation and style: the Atlantian leader, President Hedges, is chilling in his assurance that his presidency is a sign from God that he’s made, and will make, the right choices – “Without God he might have been too weak to do what sometimes had to be done, because it took a lot of love to put a man to death…” Sure, some people think he wasn’t really elected president, but if God had wanted that other guy to win then he would have won. The fact that President Hedges is president is proof that that was God’s plan, and anyone who doesn’t understand that is a confused individual who haven’t let God into their hearts. And while, during the election, “his critics had said he’d been responsible for more executions that anyone else in the country, ever” Hedges now knows that this was because God was preparing him all along for this War.
Other sub-plots involve a staffer for the President’s team working on the top 50 threats to the United States of Atlantis, an on-going terror warning about bees, a torture expert who cannot rest until his guilty prisoners (and they’re all guilty) confess, an emasculated Prime Minister whose wife only recognises his potency when he’s commanding and invading, and the Spiegelflug family: Liberty Lodge switchboard operator Marg, disaster-prepared bookkeeper Ned Snr, teenage Hermione and disaffected son Ned Jnr, filled with knowledge that pretty much everything really sucks.
Interspersed with plot are transcripts from Atlantian news broadcasts, warning the public about threats that lie in wait for them at every turn. It’s frightening how believable these are, full of inaccuracy, double-speak, inconsistency, flawed premises, hyperbole and unquestioning assurance.
Rule No. 1 (from President Hedges' maxim that “people fear death”) is difficult to categorise. I wasn’t as engrossed as I was with Underground, but I can’t tell if that’s because I’ve hyped the latter in my memory, that it resonated more because it was Australian, due to my reading it first, or because it was a little less strident. In the absence of the influence of Underground, though, Rule No. 1 is strong, complex, powerful and important. It’s a shame that the people who would most benefit from reading it are the least likely to read it. Or perhaps, with the recent change in US government, that will no longer matter. - Alex

Fat Politics - J Eric Oliver

Subtitled The Real Story Behind America's Obesity Epidemic, Oliver methodically and convincingly argues that the biggest issue with obesity is the panic rather than any health problems directly associated with being fat. As he states int he introduction, this is not the book he intended to write - a political scientist doing post-doctoral work, Oliver decided to investigate political aspects of the obesity 'epidemic' and discovered very little research had been done. The deeper he dug the more convinced he became that the science underpinning predictions and projections about weight and illness was (often profoundly) flawed, and almost always conducted by investigators with undeclared interests - ties to pharmaceutical and weight-loss companies, health care providers who will get reimbursement if being fat is officially deemed an illness, and scaremongers eager to increase the federally funded pie available if this is seen as a crisis.
Oliver also examines the American Protestant loathing of obesity that he believes lies at the heart of some of the researchers' convictions - a topic more thoroughly covered in Marilyn Wann's Fat! So? where she relates stories of women whose physicians were so focused on weight they ignored real medical issues.
Like many other anti-diet/size-acceptance campaigners, Oliver argues that the real culprit is poor diet, incessant snacking, and too little exercise, and that health care prevention programs would be better aimed at improving nutrition and encouraging exercise as ends in themselves rather than as means to reduce weight. That this sensible advice, offered by many before him, receives so little prominence is in itself an argument that the hysteria over obesity is run by something other than genuine concern.
Whether or now weight is a personal issue for you, all of us in the Western world are affected by the money pumped into funding for anti-obesity drugs, weight-loss programs supported by federal money (in Australia gym membership and weight-loss programs may be eligible for health insurance co-payment, 30% of which comes from the Federal government), and an atmosphere that encourages vituperation and prejudice based on size. The funding comes from taxes we all pay, and if it would be better used diverted elsewhere, this affects the thin as much as the fat it's aimed at. - Alex

Unspeak - Stephen Poole

British author and journalist Poole's thesis is that, "in the tradition of Orwell", the use of weasel words – words and phrases that appear to be neutral but are skewed to a particular ideology or do extra work that is obvious on the surface - is expanding at an exponential rate, shaping opinion and influencing perceptions of fact.
Although Orwell most notably coined the concept of double speak (holding two, contradictory concepts in mind simultaneously), Poole refers here to the general idea of making words perform extra duty.
Some of these are readily visible with the most cursory of examinations ('pro-life' opponents must clearly be anti-life, 'pro-choice' opponents similarly against life, 'Friends of the Earth' countered by earth's enemies), and the ideologies carried by the words are relatively unambiguous, while others require a little more thought. This is by no means a new proposition. In philosophy these terms are referred to as 'loaded' - they carry a load of implied ideology or a complicated, packed set of assumptions; and Australian writer Don Watson has written widely about the use of linguistic semantics to extricate politicians from unattractive scenarios. What sets Poole's work apart is the clarity of his writing and the broad scope that he addresses. Though set almost wholly in the politician realm, and unsurprisingly focused most heavily on the use of what he terms 'unspeak' by the Bush administration since September 11, the book begins by exploring imbedded terms in a variety of other settings, on both sides of the Atlantic.
The first chapter uses British ASBO legislation as an illustration and a springboard. Anti-social behaviour orders were introduced in 1998, and have essentially been used to criminalise behaviour that is not actually illegal. An ASBO recipient can be forbidden from performing certain behaviours for a period of two years, and jailed for up to five years if the order’s breached. While acknowledging that there may be some cases where an ASBO is appropriate, Poole gives several real examples, of which I will summarise four, where ASBOs were applied: an 87-year-old was ordered not to be sarcastic; two teenage brothers were banned from using the word ‘grass’; a young woman was forbidden to appear in her bedroom window wearing underwear; and another young woman, who had previously thrice attempted suicide by drowning, was forbidden to go “to any railway track, river, watercourse or canal in the whole of England and Wales. She was also forbidden to ‘loiter’ on bridges or go to a multi-storey car park on her own.”
The central problem, says Poole, is that the wording of the Act is so loosely worded, and the behaviours ASBOs can be used for so potentially far from actual criminal acts (being sarcastic? Lock me up now), that the range of an ASBO is unfeasibly wide. Whose sensibilities are we protecting? Whose freedoms do we infringe? Who decides what is and is not ‘anti-social’? After all, he points out, many things we now consider normal social functioning, like a Judeo-Christian framework, were once anti-social and heretical.
This is also an opening for Poole’s dissection of the political use of the term ‘community’, which Poole points out is used as though the group being so defined is a homogenous entity. This may be appropriate in some settings, like a community of football fans, homogenous in their team support, but can do extra duty when applied to a non-homogenous group, like gays or Muslims (or, indeed, Americans). We all, after all, belong to many communities, but “people who belong to ‘the gay community’ or ‘the Muslim community’ are allowed to belong to only one, which defines their whole identity.
This is a little like the word ‘tolerance’, which means ‘put up with’ rather than ‘accept’ – I might have to accept that there are people different than me living here but I don’t have to like it, and I don’t have to make them feel welcome, just refrain from actively doing anything to them.
Poole also explores shifting word use, like changing ‘refugee’ to ‘asylum seeker.’ In Australia there’s a notion of ‘queue jumping’, exemplified by the appalling Tampa/children overboard affair, where a government was re-elected on the back of xenophobic fear. Poole later talks about the notion of a ‘failed asylum seeker’ who, presumably, has not only been turned down by the Government but may have some moral failures and/or have contributed to their situation themselves.
Similarly, ‘global warming’ has been transitioned over the last decade (following, reports Poole, substantial campaigning from energy interest groups) to the more neutral and less alarmist ‘climate change’ – if the general population is less frightened they’re less likely to campaign strongly for improvements. This is akin to the switch from ‘creationism’ to ‘intelligent design’ – the underlying idea is identical (people came about as a deliberate plan by an omniscient being) but reframing it as a more neutral phrase (eliminating a Creator, not specifying who the intelligence belongs to, adding the more scientific, tech term ‘design’) make it sound more like a viable theory.
There’s also been a change in the way information is framed, so that when competing interests conflict with science (as in both global warming and creationism), demands are made that ‘both sides of the controversy’ be represented. Poole cites a response to a 2005 statement by George W Bush that “Both sides [of a debate, like evolution vs creationism] ought to be properly taught [to children]... to expose [them] to different schools of thought.” “But,” said US news anchor Ted Koppel, “not all schools of thought deserve the same level of attention.”
Poole uses statements from public figures to illustrate his underlying thesis, perhaps nowhere better than in his analysis of the death of Jean Charles de Menezes. Three weeks after the July 7 London tube and bus bombings, and one day after the events of July 21, Mr de Menedez, a Brazilian electrician was shot and killed by police because the jacket (unseasonably warm according to police, denim according to his cousin) could have been concealing a belt of explosives.
Poole doesn’t substantially address the many distressing issues leading up to this event, but concentrates instead on what was said afterward. He dissects the official police statement: “We are now satisfied that he was not connected with the incidents of Thursday, 21 July 2005. For someone to lose their life in such a circumstance is a tragedy and one the Metropolitan Police Service regrets.” As a result of this scrutiny, we see that ‘now satisfied’ does extra duty (we weren’t initially satisfied and, says Poole, that’s his fault); ‘lose his life’ removes agency from the police (they didn’t kill him, he “somehow mislaid his health with no outside help”), and ‘regret’ carries a neutrality and lukewarm distance incommensurate with the significance of what was a screw up. Then PM Blair went one step further, “referring to ‘the death that has happened,’ as though, perhaps, it had been the result of natural causes.”
Poole explores the aftermath of this widely criticised post-7/7 shoot-to-kill policy, and discusses the attempted re-framing of it as undeserved because, if de Menezes “had been a terrorist, police would have been criticised for not shooting him,” as though the criticism and not the killing were the real tragedy. And, with then-London mayor Ken Livingston’s statement that “this tragedy has added another victim to the toll of deaths for which the terrorists bear responsibility,” British authorities even re-framed the distal, if not proximal, culprits.
I am less than half way through my notes, and this review is already too lengthy. In summary: Poole also examines:
- how ‘ethnic cleansing’ and ‘cauldron’ metaphors remove the impetus to act that ‘genocide’ would impel (“What do you do with a cauldron? You certainly don’t jump in, since you would just be cooked along with its contents. You put the lid on it, perhaps, and hope it simmers down”);
- how terming relatively recent and/or deliberately fomented interethnic hatred (like that in Rwanda, Yugoslavia and the Middle East) as “ancient tribal hatreds” allows the rest of the world to throw up their hands in helplessness (he also comments on the interesting use of biblical language and metaphor that carry their own sub-texts);
- the medicalisation of was language, from (presumably metastatic) cancers that need irradicating to ‘surgical strikes’; and
- the implications of ‘collateral damage’ and the Vietnam War concept that “if it’s dead and Vietnamese, it’s [Viet Cong];” and
- the shift from “acts of terrorism” to “terrorists”;
The War on Terror, unsurprisingly, is the key focus of Unspeak, culminating in a truly sickening chapter on how the US government illegally weaselled its way around the Geneva convention on torture and treatment of prisoners of war. The failures of torture are discussed, from Napoleon (who said it just yielded what false information the prisoner though would make his captors stop) to modern military experts, and this position is supported by the fact that there has not been any terrorist activity actually halted or reported as a result of torture (per an FBI report in 2003).
This is shortly followed by a discussion of the post-9/11 term ‘enemy combatant’. According to Judge Joyce H Green, among other hypotheticals, this could apply to an elderly Swiss resident who thinks she’s writing cheques to an Afghan children’s charity. If it’s really, unbeknownst to her, an al-Qaeda front then, though neither “an ‘enemy’ nor a ‘combatant’, [she] could nevertheless by deemed by fiat as an ‘enemy combatant’, and therefore a candidate for torture.”
There is a particularly powerful section evaluating a 2005 column by Christopher Hitchens about why the outrage over Guantanamo Bay was unwarranted; some of this has since been retracted by Hitchens, in an article that makes interesting reading on its own, and which has been heavily discussed on Poole’s website.
In the second edition postscript Poole recounts how the hanging suicides of three prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, held indefinitely without charge and legally (according to the US government) able to be tortured, was framed by Rear Admiral Harry Harris (Joint Task Force Guanatanamo commander) as an assault: “I believe this was not an act of desperation, rather an act of asymmetric warfare against us.” That’s right – the prisoners weren’t despairing and traumatised, they hung themselves to somehow injure the military.
One wonders, reading some of Poole’s quotes (all of which are extensively supported) how often some of these people think before they open their mouths. While Poole is able to let some of them pass, indictments on themselves in themselves, on other occasions he’s moved to comment, with amusing if chilling sarcasm: when former President Bush noted that he “made some difficult decisions that made diplomacy hard in the Arab world,” adding ruefully that “One was, of course, attacking Iraq,” Poole notes “That must indeed have been disappointing.” - Alex

One Night at the Call Centre - Chetan Bhagat

For Shyam Mehra (Sam Marcy), team boss of the Western Appliances Strategic Group night shift, working at a call centre is a safe job to tide him over while he decides what he really wants to do with his life. Connections isn't one of those new-age, well-appointed call centres that treat its staff as valuable, and their boss, Subhash Bakshi, is a management-jargon-obsessed idiot. Plus everyone has to go by Anglicised names acceptable to American ears. But he's comfortable there and enjoys spending time with the colleagues who are now his friends - Esha Singh (Eliza Singer), Radhika Jha (Regina Jones), Varun 'Vroom' Malhotra (Victor Mell) and Military Uncle (the only older member of the team). Everyone has their problems - Esha wants to be a model but isn't tall enough; Radhika hates being subservient to her mother-in-law and suspects her marriage was a mistake; Vroom wants to be an instrument of change for India but needs his job to pay for his addiction to pizza; Military Uncle is estranged from his son, daughter-in-law and grandson; and Shyam is still in love with his ex-girlfriend and colleague Priyanka.
Priyanka's announcement that she's engaged to Ganesh Gupta, a Microsoft exec in the US (an arranged engagement brokered by their parents), triggers Shyam to reassess his life and initiates a cascade of changes that affects all the WASG team, and the rest of the call centre.
A synopsis doesn't really do justice to this unique and highly involving novel. Superficially a romance, and in adaptation for the soon-to-be-released Bollywood film Hello, One Night is also a call for action, a condemnation of the path Indian politicians have taken, a plea that the place of India be reevaluated, and an inspiration that its youth demand change. The author also attempts to have the reader evaluate her life, by requesting she answer three questions before beginning the novel, and asking her to reflect on these at the end.
This makes it sound as though One Night is sombre and heavy, but the text is readable, engaging and well paced. The characters are developed and unique, with very real problems that are resolved in a realistic, believable way - that is, as long as you are comfortable with the deus ex machina moments where God appears to inspire change. There are also some interesting insights sprikled through out the text - like the observation that "only women think there is a reason to thank people when someone listens to them."
A love of India, and a strong sense of the country, permeate the text, alongside an evaluation of America that I suspect would take most Americans by surprise - an evaluation I imagine is shared by Indian call centre workers who handle Australian enquiries. All in all a thought provoking, absorbing, welcome book that makes me interested in reading the other works of fledgling novelist Bhagat. - Alex

Among the Barbarians - Paul Sheehan

Subtitled The Dividing of Australia, this treatise by journalist Sheehan was a controversial best-seller on its release a decade ago. Inspired by an article he wrote two years earlier ("The Multicultural Myth" in the Sydney Herald Sun), and by the vituperant response that article received, Sheehan aims to support two interwoven claims about modern day Australia - first that unrestricted multiculturalism is a force that will destroy Australia; and second that anyone (or at least anyone white) who questions any aspect of immigration, multiculturalism or social services for non-Australian born inhabitants, or who discusses any ethnic aspect of anything relating to crime, unemployment or other social unworthy act or behaviour, is denounced as a racist. According to Sheehan, in modern Australian culture the term 'racist' is synonymous with ignorant, uninformed and/or erroneous, and anything a racist person says may be dismissed on the face of it, without anyone evaluating the truth of the statement or claim.
Woven through the text are discussions about the nature of the Australian landscape, focusing in particular on eucalypts - both the way they're particularly well adapted to arid Aussie conditions (they became the dominant tree species by knocking out other species competing for their various niches) and (which I didn't previously know) that indigenous colonisation of Australia dramatically altered environmental conditions 60 - 80,000 years ago, primarily through the use of fire.
Along the way Sheehan discusses the evolution of (white) Australian culture and identity, including the well known cultural cringe. He links this, and leftist ideology, to what he says is the marginalising of white/Australian/Anglo-European culture in favour of rampant multiculturalism. It is this marginalising, and the almost (I believe he wouldn't concede the 'almost') mandatory colour blindness of governmental and media reports, that led to the rise of Pauline Hanson's One Nation party.
I was very conflicted reading Among the Barbarians - on one hand I do have a degree of white guilt and the leftward-leaning, pro-multiculturalism ideology typical of my age, race, class and level of education, and many of the statements and arguments Sheehan makes seem poorly and/or selectively supported - for a more educated criticism see Anne Henderson's review. On the other hand I believe he's justified in claiming that the word 'racist' is an epithet in modern Australian society, that branding something or someone instantly marginalises and disempowers it, and that Western multicultural countries are comfortable ignoring the blatant anti-white racism of other countries (most notably China).
Sheehan makes some very interesting points - I was particularly interested in the opening section about indigenous law vs white law, using the story of Warlpiri member Stephen Jungarrayi, and his analysis of some of the issues around negotiating between indigenous and white cultures (including whether banning alcohol in indigenous groups is paternalistic, even if decided by the tribes' elders) was realistic in its inability to find a simple solution to what is a Gordian knot of complexity.
However, though he oftentimes acknowledges the contributions to Australia that immigrants have made in the past, there is little reflection or acknowledgement that, at the time of those migrations, similar concerns were raised - foreign ideologies incompatible with (undefined) Australian values, disease, enclaves of unassimilated migrants speaking their own language and not contributing to our society. In my life time this has included Greek, Italian and Turkish migrants ('60s + '70s), Vietnamese, Chinese, Thai and other Asian migrants ('80s + '90s), and Indonesian and Middle Eastern/Islamic migrants (the last decade, particularly post September 11. More troubling, Sheehan makes some broad claims without support - though he provides a bibliography, and on occasion statistics are referenced, this is often not the case. For example: "Are we importing criminals as some would have us believe? Yes. Check the prison statistics." That's the full response.
On other occasions statistics are presented misleadingly: "The truth is that all migrants undergo character checks before they get a visa. Fantasy. According to figures in the 1996 NSW Inmate Census, twenty eight percent of the non-Aboriginal prison population of New South Wales is foreign-born, not exactly a bargain for tax payers. Somehow the Department of Immigration also did not notice that career criminals were arriving among the refugee intake in large numbers."
Although precise figures for twelve years ago are time consuming to gather, in 1996 30.9% of Sydney's population was born overseas; as the majority of NSW's population lives in its capital city, if Sheehan's percentage is accurate (he does not explain why the indigenous inmates were excluded from the data), this reflects a roughly proportional percentage of overseas born inmates.
Granted, this is not an academic text, and perhaps it should not be criticised for these omissions. But if one writes about a controversial topic, presents oneself as a professional journalist, and writes with the intent of informing the general public, I think it behooves one to support one's position as robustly as possible.
Migration is the foundation of Australian society - Australia is one of the most ethnically diverse countries on the planet, and it cannot be coincidence that, despite our small population size, we are over represented in the international arenas of sport, entertainment and literature. I'm not saying there's a direct link to the composition of the population, but there's definitely a connection between that level of achievement and the national identity - a fundamental part of which includes respect for and appreciation of diversity.
Thanks to immigration the increase in aging across the population has slowed; a 1995 report showed that the cost of immigration is neutral (Williams, L., 1995, Understanding the economics of immigration, Canberra : Australian Govt. Pub. Service p. 25 - as cited here); and UK statistics from 2002 show that migrants contribute 10% to the GDP.
Many things have changed on the migration landscape in the last decade. Of course the most significant change since Sheehan's book was released is the aftermath of September 11 - globally there are tighter restrictions on travel in general, and particularly with immigration, which is often conflated with refugee intake. A month after the attacks the Howard government, in the throes of an election campaign, took advantage of public panic about terrorists hiding in refugee groups to demonise "asylum seekers" and, with mandatory detention of refugees/asylum seekers, introduce some of the most draconian legislation in the world.
The book is a somewhat light-weight, populist attempt to address real issues around multiculturalism and population size and composition in Australia. While some aspects are no long relevant, the topic is far from resolved. I agree with much of what Sheehan wrote. That Australia cannot sustain indefinite growth (through any combination of immigration and birth rate) is without question - though geographically immense, the soil quality and aridity of much of the continent precludes agriculture and large scale living, even without taking preservation of native flora, fauna and ecosystems in to account.
It's also true that policies that reduce migration, and even talk of them, are quickly branded racist - in no small part because it's rarely directed at Western white migration (from the UK, the US, Canada and New Zealand, for example), but also in general. And there are enclaves of non-assimilating migrants, though their children usually assimilate significantly. And there are groups of criminals, both organised and otherwise, from non-Anglo backgrounds; some of these have, without question, taken advantage of immigration policies and/or the small range of names in some Asian countries in order to enter under another identity. I believe this is a strong basis on which to review immigration screening procedures, but not for changing policy, and I believe it is this that Sheehan had an eye to when he wrote Among the Barbarians. - Alex

No Way to Treat a First Lady - Christopher Buckley

The media never liked First Lady Beth MacMann (dubbed "Lady Beth Mac" in the press). When husband Ken is found dead next in their bed, a bruise on his forehead from the Paul Revere silver spitoon she (allegedly) threw at him in the early hours of that morning, there's no question - she done it. Charged with assasination, Beth - herself a lawyer - turns to the best defence counsel in the land, Boyce Baylor. A former fellow student, and lover, they've barely spoken since she ended it in order to take up with the man who would be President.
The characters are adequately developed and the plot unfurls smoothly in this combination of equal parts mystery and legal thriller. There are a number of twists, though none breathtakingly surprising. Buckley is billed as one of America's funniest modern writers. While I enjoyed reading No Way to Treat a First Lady, and even chuckled a couple of times, I think that's a bit of a stretch. It was enjoyable enough, and I'd probably try another of Buckley's books if I came across it, but I won't go out of my way. - Alex

Last Drinks - Andrew McGahan

George Verney fled from Brisbane in the aftermath of the Inquiry, an investigation into corruption that tore the state apart. Content to work as a journalist for the local paper, George has lived in the small town of Highwood for a decade. When his old friend is found dead int he local power sub-station, under decidedly suspicious circumstances, George is drawn back to the city he once loved, and the life that once loved him back.
Like many Australians, though not of Queensland I have a connection to it (in this case my father and his family) and have visited. As McGahan points out, Queensland is different - a difference accepted but unexplored. McGahan discusses how, why it was able to keep the same premier for over thirty years, why the political set up is different from that in the rest of the country, how the people in power managed to inculcate a distrust of education and infrastructure that other people take as necessities, and how corruption not only flourished but became an accepted part of doing business.
I can't do justice to this magnificent book, an homage to alcohol abuse, a clear eyed vision of Brisbane past, and a triumph of writing. His voice is crystalline, his prose lucid and lucent, his protagonist flawed and blind and genuine. I recently reviewed another of his books, Underground, which was funnier. I devoured it, and was less conscious of the beautiful prose - in Last Drinks I was better able to pace myself, and therefore caught a lot of the just perfect writing. I don't tend to retain specific phrases long, but the sentence "Conditioned air embraced me like winter" stays with me.
I'm tempted to quote long sections about the Queensland way, both for their factual illumination and for the beautiful prose. Instead I'm going to restrict myself to one paragraph (from pages - 341 - 342):
"... we were falling behind the southern states in everything - industry, infrastructure, education. People were starting to wonder why. So the parliament said tot he voters, it doesn't matter if you're poor. You're tougher than those southern states, you don't need good roads or good schools, you're tougher than that, you're different. Ignore anyone from the south who laughs at us, ignore anyone who suggests things could be better. In fact, be suspicious of anyone who says things could be better. They don't understand the Queensland way...
"You're rough and ready, they said. You don't need sophistication. You'll get by because you're simple, decent., hard-working folk. Be satisfied with less, be satisfied with backwardness. No, be proud of it. Because you're unique here in Queensland...
"The worship of ignorance. It's an excuse, that's all it is. It's the excuse of rednecks and backwaters and corrupt governments the world over. The saddest thing is the that people believe it. They get used to it. They accept whatever leftovers they're given. And meanwhile the bastards at the top keep scooping the heart out of the place."
Well, I tried for one paragraph but just couldn't stop. This is a novel that is deeply disquieting and deeply satisfying. I postponed reading it because I so enjoyed Underground I was concerned this would, if less good, detract from my enjoyment of the first read book. Instead, Last Drinks has enhanced my appreciation of this writer and his overwhelmingly perfect creations. - Alex

Underground – Andrew McGahan

Eight years after the shocking events of September 11, Australia is rocked by the detonation of a nuclear bomb in Canberra, making the nation’s capital uninhabitable for hundred of thousands of years. The terrorists gave the city three days warning and, unless there were people who refused to evacuate and hid from the search teams, nobody was killed, but this first terrorist act of Australian soil was unquestionably a disaster. In the wake of the bomb Australia’s Prime Minister Bernard James, worthy successor to Liberal PM John Howard, introduced hardline laws restricting immigration, confining potential terrorists (ie all Muslims and other dissidents) in ghettos, mandatory identity cards, compulsory check points, and other concessions in the name of safety and freedom.
Two years later Leo James, failed entrepreneur and black-sheep twin of the PM, is standing in the only completed suite of his latest failure, a grandiose hotel complex in north Queensland, drunkenly celebrating the arrival of category five hurricane Yusuf – the insurance money is worth way more than the complex would otherwise get. When Leo finally realises the danger of the hurricane he starts to leave the hotel, but is kidnapped at gunpoint by masked men in a commandeered Australia Post van, though not before a piece of hurricane-thrown corrugated roofing decapitates one of the would-be kidnappers. Led by a burqa-clad woman, the gang are a branch of the Great Southern Jihad and she claims the GSJ set the Canberra bomb. She takes Leo on a drive to meet her bosses but, before they’ve gone any distance at all, the van is ambushed by Federal Police, who kill the men and strip the burqa off Aisha Fatima Islam, also known as Nancy Campbell, revealing a pale, almost albino woman. Uninterested in debriefing her, AFP officers are about to shoot her when they’re killed and Leo (and Aisha/Nancy) are taken captive again.
Only Leo discovers he’s not a captive – he’s been rescued by the Oz Underground, a group devoted to restoring Australia’s pre-bomb democracy, a group he’d always believed were apocryphal. Harry, the cell leader, tells Leo that the AFP would have killed him, too, and he proves it – the news announces that the body found on Leo’s construction site was his. Leo’s own twin wants him dead and, as PM, has the power to do it.
McGahan shines a spotlight on what’s wrong with Australia today, from the new ultra-nationalism to the loss of our sense of irreverence, and paints a grim picture of what could happen if we continue to blithely ignore the erosion of our rights and the rights of refugees and the dispossessed. His discussion about secularism failing to inoculate youth against radical religion is inspired and, like much of the book, really resonated with me.
I’m no fan of cricket but the whole description of an Australian-American match was fantastic, and little asides (like comparing the CIA observers to invading Romans – “Ah, but forgive me. It’s been illegal now for some years to compare America to the Roman Empire hasn’t it – by special act of Congress, indeed, ratified by the governments of every allied nation. A criminal offence. American cannot be anything like the Roman Empire, because the Roman Empire collapsed, and to suggest any sort of similar fate for the US is pure treason”) are inspired.
Underground is one of the best books I’ve read in a long time – the pace is relentless, the plot is both terrifying and believable, it exemplifies what Australia is all about, it’s thoughtful and reflective, and it’s unexpectedly funny and pointed and just plain Australian; it really couldn’t have been written by an author of any other nation. I thoroughly enjoyed every word and was torn between racing through to see what happened next and lingering so the book wasn’t over any sooner than it had to be. This is genuinely great. Read it! - Alex