I bought this lovely little anthology at an op shop in Mountain Gate Shopping Centre. The lady tried to give it to me for free, she told it wasn’t worth her time writing 50c into the sales book. I didn’t give her a choice and slid the money over anyway. Op shops raise money for good causes and I’m not going to diddle them of 50c. We went into two op shops that day and I don’t remember the names of either of them. It’s a great strip shopping centre and with the number of shops they could easily rival a mall such as Chadstone or Southland. The malls are great for extremes of temperatures, but I do prefer strip shopping centres.
I picked this up because I do love a good anthology. The only author I recall hearing of before is Serge Liberman, but I don’t think I’ve read any of his stuff before now. I figured it would be a good time to see what he’s made of. Running through my mind was that 50c would be an exceptionally good price to pay to read his stuff for the first time, and if nothing else was any good then at least the money went to a good cause.
Published in 1987 the theme appears to be Australian writers. That’s good, I’m quite fond of Australian writers. The authors are:
- Patricia Veitch
- Serge Liberman
- Stephen Radic
- Lolo Houbein
- Ann Granat
- Jon Weaving
- Richard Lunn
- Chris Corbett
- Michele Nayman
- Shane McCauley
- Peter Farrar
- Max Painter
- Audrey Stevenson
- heidemarie Knop
- Bill Cotter
- Barry Carozzi
As it turns out I loved the writing in every single story. Some of the stories I loved more than others, but the writing was still excellent. I made very few notes. While each story was noteworthy in an of itself I don’t want to say too much about each story as that will take too long and it’d be spoilers. And while that last part is very poor English I’m sure you’ll understand, it’s this modern English you see.
The first note I made was on page 40, in the story by Jon Weaving. The lady seems to have misplaced her love for someone, she considers looking for it under the stove. Some beautiful imagery combined with a joke typical of my family.
The next two notes are in Shane McCauley’s story. Apparently Spring is as tardy as the patrons. Our character is part of a circus and that little comment illustrates beautifully that the season of Spring is late and that it’s cold and wet. The other note is where he describes a boy as looking like an abandoned mop. In other words, untidy and wet. Lovely imagery.
I’m not certain I want to write about Max Painter’s story. The family are Italian, some of them have English and some not. Living in the English speaking country of Australia doesn’t mean every learns English. If they stay at home they have little impetus to learn. The way Painter details the dialect Tozzi speaks is just beautiful. ‘…full of crackling twigs and smoke…’ There’s more but this is enough to help you understand that Painter has a way with words.
I certainly recommend this anthology. Each story is well worth much more than the original cover price of $5.95. This is the sequel, I hope to find the original Storyteller anthology one day. I’m sure the stories in that book will be just as good as this one. And I’m always curious to see how many authors I’ve heard of before. Generally it’s not many.
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