FOUR CLASSIC READS

KANGAROO by D.H. Lawrence, Text

Semi-autobiographical and published in 1923, three months after Lawrence and wife Frieda visited Australia. Recent arrival Richard Lovat Somers immediately senses a spirit of our country: “The vast, uninhabited land frightened him. It seemed so hoary and lost, so unapproachable.” Somers becomes enmeshed in the politics of his new homeland. “Kangaroo” is the leader of a movement of disenchanted war veterans. “Lawrence was the first modern writer of world stature to lay eyes on Australia and spend himself upon its mysteries.” writes author Nicolas Rothwell in the introduction.

DEEP WATER by Patricia Highsmith, Virago

Written in 1957, this is one of Highsmith’s lesser-known novels, but no less affecting. It’s set in a sleepy suburb where husband Vic Van Allen is trying to cope with his wife Melinda’s flagrant affairs. As their marriage unravels, awful things befall Melinda’s lovers. Gone Girl author Gillian Flynn writes, “From the second Vic commits the first murder you realise there is no good resolution.” It’s pure Highsmith, visual and visceral: “As Vic slipped into sleep, the antagonism rose slowly in him against Melinda, almost involuntarily, wraithlike, groping like a wrestler for a hold.”

A PURE CLEAR LIGHT by Madeleine St John, Text

Written in 1996 and her second novel, it is based in London where St John left Sydney to settle. Set around trendy Camden Town and Notting Hill, we witness the marriage of Simon and Flora at the moment it careens off track. Simon stays to work on his film project, while Flora takes their “three perfect children” to France for a vacation. “We know more than the characters know about each other,” writes Rosalie Ham, author of The Dressmaker. Simon is having an affair. “The women in this novel are generally right (and they get the best lines) and see the truth in what’s before them,” observes Ham.

THE MAN FROM SNOWY RIVER by A.B. (Banjo) Paterson, HarperCollins

Keepsake edition of Paterson’s verse, one of a series reproduced as they were in World War One. Designed to fit into a soldier’s trench jacket pocket, these gems were posted overseas to sons and sweethearts on the front. Each has a beautiful full colour plate regular “jacket” (this one illustrated by Norman Lindsay), which is cleverly overlapped with special “trench” jacket. On Banjo: “His word-pictures of men and manners out back are the recorded memories of what has become familiar to him ... he sees and feels the beauty of Australia.”