Welcome to GR Online, a series of short-form articles that take aim at the moving target of contemporary culture as it’s whisked along the guide rails of innovations in digital media, globalisation and late-stage capitalism.
On ‘Radiance’, by Louis Nowra
DRAMA IS NOT about what gets said and done but what gets understood. The ostensible content of a play...
On ‘Carry Me Down’, by MJ Hyland
MARIA (MJ) HYLAND'S extraordinary second novel, Carry Me Down, was published in 2006, two years after her debut, How...
On ‘The Macquarie Pen Anthology of Australian Literature’
WHAT IS AN anthology? The term comes from two Greek words meaning ‘flower’ and ‘collection’. Anthologies, then, are collections...
On ‘Hotel Sorrento’, by Hannie Rayson
HANNIE RAYSON'S WELL-loved Hotel Sorrento, which premiered onstage in 1991 and was made into a feature film in 1995,...
On ‘Collected Stories’, by Janette Turner Hospital
AS I WRITE this essay the cicadas are shrill outside. The air is heavy and even in my cool...
On ‘Remember Ronald Ryan’, by Barry Dickins
'PLEASE ADMIT THE bearer…to the execution of Ronald Joseph Ryan, on 3rd February, 1967.’ This invitation, received by journalists covering...
The new wave
LATELY, THREE LOCALLY made films have escaped Adelaide for the world, all directed by women. Sophie Hyde’s 52 Tuesdays,...
The engine of Christmas
Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before! Maybe Christmas, he thought, doesn’t come from a store. Dr Seuss,...
Lessons of Enlightenment
Hope is the thing with feathersThat perches in the soulAnd sings the tune without the wordsAnd never stops at...
On ‘The White Earth’, by Andrew McGahan
The first breathtaking pages of The White Earth describe a fire tearing through wheat fields. This is the first of many fires, and as the novel progresses it is this particular element that will come to symbolise some of the more frightening, and ugly, aspects of the Australian psyche.
Do your practice and all is coming
I’VE NEVER BEEN the sporty type – built for comfort rather than speed, more shot-putter than marathon runner. I...
From the outer sanctum
IT WASN’T UNTIL my young daughter asked why Sam Newman was calling me and the rest of The Outer...
