Jay Daniel Thompson

Jay Daniel Thompson reviews 'The Passion of Bradley Manning: The story behind the Wikileaks whistleblower' by Chase Madar

May 2013, no. 351 • 28 April 2013

Bradley Manning is famous for being the US soldier who supplied WikiLeaks with its ‘choicest material’. In The Passion of Bradley Manning, Chase Madar argues that Manning is a national hero who has been wrongfully punished for his actions. ... (read more)

Jay Daniel Thompson reviews 'Reluctant Rescuers: An exploration of the Australian Border Protection system’s safety record in detecting and intercepting asylum-seeker boats, 1998–2011' by Tony Kevin

May 2013, no. 351 • 28 April 2013

In Reluctant Rescuers, Tony Kevin addresses the rescue at sea of boat people who have entered Australian waters. He aims to provide a ‘fact-based analysis of a shadowy’ – and deeply controversial – ‘area of public policy’. Kevin begins by correcting the myth that ‘people smugglers’ are the ‘main culprits when people die at sea’. He investigates the border protection systems tha ... (read more)

Jay Daniel Thompson reviews 'Speaking Secrets' by Sue Joseph

March 2013, no. 349 • 08 March 2013

In Speaking Secrets, academic and journalist Sue Joseph looks at what happens when sex becomes ‘public property’, and interviews a range of Australians who have had often traumatic sex and sexuality-related experiences aired to a wide audience through the media. Some of her interviewees are well known, others are not. Several discuss their experience of sexual abuse, either as a victim or as t ... (read more)

Jay Daniel Thompson reviews 'Ghost Wife' by Michelle Dicinoski

March 2013, no. 349 • 06 March 2013

Ghost Wife is a timely text, given the recent debates about same-sex marriage. Michelle Dicinoski writes about travelling to Canada in 2005 to marry her girlfriend, Heather. The pair met while undertaking postgraduate studies in Queensland. By marrying, they wanted to make a ‘permanent record’ of their relationship. Dicinoski was wary that many gays and lesbians over the centuries have been r ... (read more)

Jay Daniel Thompson reviews 'The Darkest Little Room' by Patrick Holland

December 2012–January 2013, no. 347 • 29 November 2012

T he Darkest Little Room, Patrick Holland’s latest novel, looks at sexual slavery and obsession in South-East Asia. The protagonist is Joseph, an Australian reporter travelling in Vietnam. Intent on finding a beautiful woman glimpsed briefly, he receives word that she may be working in a brothel known as ‘the darkest little room’. In pursuing this lead, Joseph meets and falls in love with a ... (read more)

Jay Daniel Thompson reviews 'Midnight Empire' by Andrew Croome

November 2012, no. 346 • 26 October 2012

Midnight Empire, the second novel by Canberra author Andrew Croome, depicts political intrigue and acts of violence that play out against the backdrop of the so-called ‘war on terror’. The protagonist is Daniel Carter, a young Australian computer programmer who arrives in Las Vegas for business purposes. Daniel develops a taste for cards and has an affair with a professional poker player name ... (read more)

Jay Daniel Thompson reviews 'To the Highlands' by Jon Doust

October 2012, no. 345 • 25 September 2012

In To the Highlands, the second instalment in a trilogy entitled ‘One Boy’s Journey to Man’, Jon Doust provides a gripping examination of racism and male sexuality in 1960s Australia. In the novel’s opening pages, Jack Muir arrives on some unnamed ‘islands’ to take up a banking job. Muir is barely out of high school. His early days in his new surroundings are marked by drunken carousi ... (read more)

Jay Daniel Thompson reviews 'fourW twenty-two' edited by David Gilbey

September 2012, no. 344 • 28 August 2012

f ourW twenty-two is an initiative of the Booranga Writers’ Centre in Wagga Wagga. This current edition features short stories and poems by (predominantly) Australian writers. Some of these writers are prominent names; others are relatively unknown. ... (read more)

Jay Daniel Thompson reviews 'The Meaning of Grace' by Deborah Forster

May 2012, no. 341 • 23 April 2012

Three years after her first novel, The Book of Emmett, which chronicled the trials and tribulations of a troubled family, Melbourne writer Deborah Forster covers similar territory in her second, The Meaning of Grace. It opens with an elderly woman named Grace dying of cancer in hospital, then rewinds several decades, back to when a much younger Grace and her children moved to the seaside town of Y ... (read more)

Jay Daniel Thompson reviews 'Vanda and Young' by John Tait and 'Behind the Rock and Beyond' by Jon Hayton and Leon Isackson

October 2010, no. 325 • 01 October 2010

 The history of Australian rock music is rich and eclectic. Vanda and Young: Inside Australia’s Hit Factory and Behind the Rock and Beyond: The Diary of a Rock Band, 1956–1980 provide two perspectives on the early years of rock music in this country. John Tait, owner of a second-hand record and bookshop in Melbourne and a self-confessed ‘avid collector of Australian music’, has writte ... (read more)