Slightly obscure in meaning, this poem appears to make a comparative commentary on the Airforce jets which fly over the MCG as part of the pre-match entertainment on Grand Final day, with the different sort of warriors who take to the football field. Three stanzas.

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Readingthegame | Jun 23, 2020 |

The Amateur Science of Love por Craig Sherborne

Sorry, as much as I loved the article this book was based on, the extension of it feels kind of excessive--in that I felt for him in the article (written by the same man, on his own life experiences), but just wanted it to end in the novel.

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Loryndalar | 2 reseñas más. | Mar 19, 2020 |

Off the Record: A Novel por Craig Sherborne

Off the Record is a deliciously droll satire. It's Craig Sherborne's third novel, following on from The Amateur Science of Love (which I really liked when I reviewed back in 2011) and Tree Palace (2014) which I put on my wishlist but #SmacksForehead forgot to buy.
Callum 'Wordsmith' Smith, a.k.a. 'Words' is a tabloid journalist whose marriage is in trouble. He's a pedantic neat-freak, picky about grammar and tidiness but not above faking outrage stories or making up lies about the man he thinks is wooing his estranged wife.
Words is alternately brutally honest with himself and self-deluded. Sherborne (who used to be a journo for the tabloid 'Melbourne Sun' a.k.a. The Melbourne Daily Astonisher') skewers the methodology of tabloid journalists. Here's Words admitting his tactics while falling prey to what's called Noble Cause Corruption i.e. believing that the ends justify the means:

I, Words, am a provider and required to earn wages. In the service of which I have knocked on flyscreens and said to mothers of kidnapped toddlers, ‘Don’t you feel guilty for leaving your child in the front yard alone?’ I have shamed them to tears for the photographer. I have gatecrashed funerals, linked innocent corpses to local crime syndicates. Or feigned empathy to the grief-stricken to make copy from their hard-luck stories. I enjoyed the kudos of my name beneath headlines on front pages and became used to the heartlessness as if blank inside. I was doing it for my family—it was worth the cruelty. (p.4)

and

There is an equation to shame where wrongdoing is converted to rightness. It requires no thinking - it does the reasoning itself. My asking Ollie [his son] to spy was a shameful act for a father, but my religion of family made it dutiful. (p.49)

Hmm. This is a man whose religion of family does not preclude a one-night stand with an ad rep - sex of the clothes-on, standing-up kind that no one could call by the wholesome word lovemaking. His idea of self-reflection is to regret his own honesty in telling his wife about it, so that by confessing, the great gesture of being honest would void the sin. He seems genuinely surprised by their estrangement and maintains throughout the novel a naïve optimism that all he has to do is stage-manage various reconciliatory gestures and the marriage will be ok. No woman reading his litany of self-deception is going to be convinced. Sherborne structures his novel so that readers are more likely to be barracking for Emma to give him the heave-ho as fast as she can!

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2018/03/17/off-the-record-by-craig-sherborne-bookreview...… (más)

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anzlitlovers | Mar 17, 2018 |

Tree Palace por Craig Sherborne

This is just SO good. Beautifully written. The words flow off the page into your brain with such ease that you'd think the pages were teflon-coated. This is authorial craft at its best.

A truly engaging story about a bunch of interesting, wild and unlikely heroes. Craig Sherborne is among Australia's best.

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PhilipJHunt | Aug 18, 2015 |

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