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Rodney Hall

Just Relations by Rodney Hall & North Wind by John Morrison

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August 1982, no. 43
John McLaren reviews 'Just Relations' by Rodney Hall and 'North Wind' by John Morrison

These two works of fiction at first seem to offer only a contrast in literary style and method. John Morrison’s book is a collection of stories ranging from the title story, published in his first collection, Sailors Belong Ships (1947), to four not previously published in book form ...

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A Stolen Season by Rodney Hall

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April 2018, no. 400
Brian Matthews reviews 'A Stolen Season' by Rodney Hall

Of the now twelve novels that make up Rodney Hall’s distinguished prose fiction – ranging from The Ship on the Coin (1972) to this year’s A Stolen Season – it is arguably in the latter that the task of remaking is most explicitly and adventurously undertaken, even literally in the case of Adam Griffiths. As an Australian ...

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The missing novels: our critics nominate some overlooked classics

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September 2015, no. 374

Early success is no guarantee of a book’s continued availability or circulation. Some major and/or once-fashionable authors recede from public consciousness, and in some cases go out of print. We invited some writers and critics to identity novelists who they feel should be better known.

Crucible: An Australian First World War novel by J.P. McKinney

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June–July 2014, no. 362
Rodney Hall reviews 'Crucible' by J.P. McKinney

Everybody knows by now that the eBook may soon become as significant to literature as recording is to music. The copyright problems are evident, but on the positive side the tired old market-driven canon is being given a rude shake-up.

Quality speaks for itself. Recent welcome revivals include editions of David Ireland’s The Unknown Industrial Prisoner (1971) and Kenneth Mackenzie’s flawless evocation of adolescent love, The Young Desire It (1937). Now, for the first time in seventy-eight years, J.P. McKinney’s novel of the Great War, Crucible, has been reissued by a small Canberra publisher as an eBook.

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Silence by Rodney Hall

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November 2011, no. 336

Isaiah Berlin famously divided people into two categories: hedgehogs and foxes. The former know one big thing with absolute certainty; the latter know many small things. When it comes to writers of fiction, a parallel distinction might be made on stylistic grounds. There are some writers who cultivate a finely attuned personal style – a style that becomes unmistak ...

Open Page with Rodney Hall

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June 2011, no. 332
Open Page with Rodney Hall

I write for a reader, any reader – just one – who is willing to participate on a creative level in the experience of my book. I do not plan my novels, and I think if I ever did I would lose interest in finishing them. Nor do I ever alter the order in which the narrative unfolds. Otherwise, how would I keep track of what my reader knows and doesn’t know? I don’t care about plot. Instead, the aim is to transmogrify experience. What drives me is the music of the sentence. It’s all about a shared energy with the reader. That’s what fires me up.

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Love without Hope by Rodney Hall

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February 2007, no. 288
Rosemary Sorensen reviews 'Love without Hope' by Rodney Hall

A conversation about an anachronism led Rodney Hall to this new novel, Love without Hope. He acknowledges his wife as the person who informed him that until the 1980s there was a Department of Lunacy in New South Wales, with an asylum superintendent titled the Master of Lunacy.

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The Grisly Wife by Rodney Hall

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November 1993, no. 156
Nigel Krauth reviews 'The Grisly Wife' by Rodney Hall

In 1868 John Heaps (alias Muley Moloch), a preacher, self-styled prophet, and trained bootmaker, left England with a group of eight women bound for Australia. Their intention was to set up a mission dedicated to the development of their own perfection and a preparation for the Second Coming of Christ ...

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The Grisly Wife by Rodney Hall

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November 1993, no. 156
Robert Holden reviews 'The Grisly Wife' by Rodney Hall

With the publication of Rodney Hall’s latest novel, The Grisly Wife, the author has brought to completion a trilogy that first began appearing in 1988. Since this last published novel is actually the middle work of the trilogy and what were formerly two separate novels are now bridged by this newcomer, we are finally given the opportunity to assess if and how the parts relate to the whole.

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Barbara Giles reviews 'The Most Beautiful World' by Rodney Hall, 'Tide Country' by Vivian Smith, 'Heaven of Rags' by Gary Catalano, and 'Song of the Humpbacked Whales' by Jill Hellyer

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December 1982–January 1983, no. 47

The Most Beautiful World is somewhat of a conundrum at first look. I spent a long time trying to penetrate the surface of this latest book of poetry by Rodney Hall. I had just been reading his exciting, original, and well-sustained novel Just Relations, I guess I was looking for the same excitement here. It didn’t arrive on schedule.

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