摘要：This book performs the remarkable sleight-of-mind of making its object so clear, so obvious, and so pressing that one wonders how it has not been written about before. As an exploration of the deep links between Australian society, culture, politics, and literature, this book will interest both scholars and lay readers. It has a broadly chronological structure, beginning with Patrick White and moving through Judith Wright to more recent authors, ending with Tim Winton. At the beginning, in particular, there are smooth transitions between authors, perhaps due to the stronger sense of a national literary tradition in White and Wright. The more contemporary discussion is usefully brought together in a coda. Rooney immediately addresses what she calls the ‘decline thesis’ of Australian literature and public intellectual activity, noting the tenuousness of the Australian literary market and the shifts that have displaced the cultural capital of elite intellectuals. In fact, this latter issue is fodder for her discussion of the unique contribution made by Australian authors to intellectual life. Rooney’s introduction establishes a firm context for the rest of the book, including David Marr’s identification the pressing need for authors to ‘provide the nation’s moral compass’ (xi) as White did in The Prodigal Son. Rooney reflects upon Mark Latham’s labelling of urbanite cultural insiders as ‘tourists’ and suburbanite middle-Australia as ‘residents’, as well as Said’s identification of the writer as a public intellectual and David Williamson’s firm rejection of what he saw as elitist intellectualism. Authenticity as a battleground is a recurrent theme. Throughout the book, Rooney consistently eschews simplistic views of either writers as a whole or individual writers, exploring themes which ‘convey familiar national narratives that join representations of the literary writer to public life in distinctly Australian terms’ (xxx).
