Oz Lit for Dummies – Part 1

The Australian book market is much like its foreign counterparts in that the books that sell are usually not the books receiving critical acclaim and international prizes. Typical also is the condition of Australian book review sections, which appear in only a handful of publications, and those have ever fewer fiction reviews with less space dedicated to each. So I won’t bore you all with a longwinded rant about the disconnect between the elites and the common reader or the death of literary culture, because we’ve all heard it before. What I will do over the next couple of days is give you a quick rundown on the Australian books that are being bought, the ones that are winning the big awards, and the ones that I reckon you should read.

If you're used to reading US sales figures the ones quoted here are going to seem ridiculously tiny, but there are only 20 million of us, remember, so it doesn’t take all that many sales to make a significant impact on the marketplace. Total adult fiction sales in Australia last year were 1,050,000 units, which is slightly more than the year before, but less than the combined total of Harry Potter books sold. Four of the top ten selling adult fiction titles were by homegrown authors, which is cause for celebration because it's double the number that made it onto the list the previous year.

The number one Australian book, with sales of over 190,000 was The Bride Stripped Bare, an anonymously published novel about a housewife’s secret sex life which gained mucho publicity through the revelation that the author was Aussie housewife (and marketing genius) Nikki Gemmel. Next up with 120,000 was Matthew Reilly’s American style action thriller Scarecrow, followed by two multi-generational romantic sagas: Barra Creek by Di Morrissey (85,000) and The Touch by Colleen McCullough (75,000). To put these sales into perspective, a typical literary novel here sells less than 2000 copies.

I know Gemmel caused a similar stir in Britain as she did here, and that McCullough has had an international following ever since The Thorn Birds , but considering the fact that the other names on the Aussie top ten (Dan Brown, Wilbur Smith, James Patterson, John Grisham, Tom Clancy, Patricia Cornwell) are found on bestseller lists all over the world, I’m interested in whether any of the Aussie’s have made an impact outside of Oz. So how about it? Did any of these books get attention in your neck of the woods? When you think of Australian fiction, what comes to mind?

Comments

[dave worsley]

A highlight for me for 2002 was Chloe Hooper's A Childs Book of True Crime. A tense startling thriller (of sorts) that made a small splash in the US as well.

[Naomi Hirahara]

Richard Flanagan's books (The Sound of One Hand Clapping, Death of a River Guide, Gould's Book of Fish). He has spoken at the L.A. Times Festival of Books.

[Jenny D]

The writers I seem to hear about by far the most often are Peter Carey and David Malouf.

I don't know if you'd want to count it since as far as I know he's English, but I loved Ben Rice's book "Pobby and Dingan," which I think was written on the basis of some time in Australia?

But far and away my favorite is GARTH NIX! I love his books. I'm curious what you think of him--do you tend to hear a lot about him in Australia, or not so much?

[Pat Lambe]

I've been reading a vaguely good book called Gould's Book of Fish by Richard Flannigan. It's a weird book that actually takes place in Tasmania (I think, I don't have it in front of me at work)It's very confusing and has something to do with the Convict system and the search for a fabulously illustrated book and the man who produced it. It reminds me a little of Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow with a disjointed and experimental narrative style.

[David Thayer]

The Year of Living Dangerously is my first association with writers from Oz. While visiting Jakarta I was reminded by my hosts that the PKI revolt never happened, Sukarno never died and the novel was slanderous.
I read a novel called Freud and the Nazis Go Surfing; I think the author is Australian. Maybe he's in jail now.

[Peter]

Re: crime fiction, Shane Maloney's Murray Whelan series is just starting to come out to some success in the UK, from Canongate Books - infuriatingly they are coming out in a different chronological order than either the continuing plot line or the sequence in which they were written - but still very worth reading.

[Emily]

Pat, I liked Gould’s Book of Fish, but a lot of people here hated it. You might be interested in this article, which covers the polarity of responses to it. "http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/04/05/1017206260960.html">http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/04/05/1017206260960.html
Interesting that several of the titles mentioned are books set in Tasmania, which is, to the vast majority of mainlanders, practically another country. There was a good old fashioned literary stoush here a couple of years ago when a bloke called Tim Herbert published ‘The Van Diemenising of Tasmania: Can the Apple Isle hold out against those who'd make it Australia's favourite narrative site?’ in a writer’s mag. I can’t find it online but the gist of it was the non-Tassies were appropriating Tasmania as a creepy, gruesome setting. Personally, I think a writer can set her novel wherever she chooses. And the thing is, Tasmania is a genuinely creepy place. I adore it, and want desperately to move there, but I challenge anyone to stand inside the old convict prison grounds at Port Arthur, looking across at the achingly beautiful Tasmanian Wilderness over the water and not feel shivers all up and done their spine.

[Emily]

Jenny, Garth Nix doesn't get an awful lot of attention in the media, but it hasn't hurt him at all. He is the best selling fantasy writer in Australia, has a huge following and has been translated into just about every language there is. Despite this, he seems to be a low-key bloke.

Peter, the first of a planned series of Murray Whelan telemovies aired here recently. As someone who doesn't follow crime fiction particularly closely, I'd say that Maloney is the best known writer in the genre.

[Lena]

I know, I know Paul Thomas is not Australian. But New Zealand is only a 3 or 4 hours flight away right? Anyway his books are seriously funny as well as being blessed with good plots and some cool characters. And how about Jessica Adams? It says in her book "Tom,Dick and Debbie Harry" that she has homes in Sidney and London.

[Ben]

The one Australian author everyone should read is Ben Pobjie. I would go so far as to say that everyone should write to publishers and demand that they put out his books.

That, ah, Gretel Killeen, she's rool good too eh.

[Bill Green]

Didn't make it to jail, Sarah. The only real punishment I nearly had was a bomb threat for the flight on which I forced the Australian Government to lift the ban on rebel journalist, Wilfred Burchett. And then there were several more stories that closed me out of mainstream journalism. Burchett was requested by Kissinger and Nixon a week after I brought him in from the cold (Am I living fiction or not?)and they talked for many hours.

Freud and the Nazis Go Surfing was an attempt to come to terms with the racism and sexism in this fading country.

And as far as Peter Carey goes he shot through after my wife gave him a winning tip at a Sydney racecourse when he was researching gambling for Oscar and Lucinda. Tradition is if you win a large amount of money you buy your celebrating colleagues a glass of champagne. Neither did he take my advice that gamblers get the same emotional thrill whether they win or lose.

FatNGS was chosen for workshopping at Sundance. Cheers.