Jacqueline Kent

Jacqueline Kent reviews 'Bryce Courtenay: Storyteller' by Christine Courtenay

December 2022, no. 449 • 25 November 2022

In the introduction to her book about Bryce Courtenay (1933–2012), Christine Courtenay writes: ‘To be Bryce’s wife was both a joy and a privilege, and I remain proud of the contribution I made to our years together. Not long after we became a couple, he said, “I love you very deeply and we make a fantastic team, but you do realise you have taken on a full-time job looking after me? Plus, f ... (read more)

Jacqueline Kent reviews 'Yarn Spinners: A story in letters' edited by Marilla North

October 2001, no. 235 • 16 September 2022

‘This is a book about friendship and storytelling’, writes Marilla North in her prologue to this artfully arranged selection of correspondence. It begins in 1928 and covers the next twenty-seven years, chronicling the large and small events in the lives of Dymphna Cusack, Florence James, and Miles Franklin, three of Australia’s most vital, fluent, and committed women writers. The book begin ... (read more)

Jacqueline Kent reviews 'Reckoning: The forgotten children and their quest for justice' by David Hill

May 2022, no. 442 • 24 April 2022

In 1959, David Hill, aged twelve, left England and sailed on the Strathaird to Australia with two of his three brothers. Like thousands of children before them the Hill boys were bound for a Fairbridge farm school. Like thousands of children before them, they had come from a poor background, with a struggling single mother who believed that Fairbridge would give her boys a better education and gre ... (read more)

Jacqueline Kent reviews 'My Accidental Career' by Brenda Niall

April 2022, no. 441 • 23 March 2022

It’s always interesting to see biographers decide to turn the spotlight upon themselves, and to ask why. Will it be another case of ‘now it’s my turn’? The need to confess, even to enter into the Land of Too Much Information? ... (read more)

Jacqueline Kent reviews 'The Most I Could Be: A Renaissance story' by Dale Kent

July 2021, no. 433 • 27 May 2021

There’s a Judy Horacek cartoon in which a woman tells a friend that she once intended to be the perfect wife, a domestic goddess. When the friend asks, ‘So what happened?’, the woman replies, ‘They taught me to read.’ Many women will relate to this, perhaps including Dale Kent (no relation to this reviewer). The Most I Could Be is the story of her struggle to reconcile her 1950s upbring ... (read more)

Jacqueline Kent reviews 'Killing Sydney: The fight for a city’s soul' by Elizabeth Farrelly and 'Sydney (Second Edition)' by Delia Falconer

March 2021, no. 429 • 22 February 2021

Poor old Sydney. If it isn’t being described as crass and culturally superficial, it’s being condemned for allowing developers to obliterate whatever natural beauty it ever had. Is it doomed, will it survive, and if so, what kind of city is it likely to be? Elizabeth Farrelly is here to provide answers to these and other questions. An architect, former City of Sydney Councillor, and tertiary ... (read more)

Jacqueline Kent reviews 'Mary’s Last Dance: The untold story of the wife of Mao’s Last Dancer' by Mary Li

December 2020, no. 427 • 26 November 2020

The cover of this book tells you pretty much what to expect. It shows the dancer Li Cunxin, evidently at rehearsal, facing the camera while over his shoulder peeps his wife, Mary. Add the subtitle, that this is the ‘untold story’ of Li Cunxin’s wife, with a foreword by the man himself, and it’s clear that this book might not have seen the light of day without the phenomenal success of Mao ... (read more)

Jacqueline Kent reviews 'Radio Girl: The story of the extraordinary Mrs Mac, pioneering engineer and wartime legend' by David Dufty

June–July 2020, no. 422 • 26 May 2020

At first glance, this biography does not look especially compelling. Why should we want to know about Australia’s first woman radio pioneer? But David Dufty calmly and quietly shows why Violet McKenzie is well worth celebrating. From her earliest days, Violet, born in 1890, showed great flair for practical science. She became a high school maths teacher but was determined to study electrical en ... (read more)

Jacqueline Kent reviews 'She I Dare Not Name: A spinster’s meditations on life' by Donna Ward

May 2020, no. 421 • 27 April 2020

The confusing aspects of this book begin with the title, She I Dare Not Name. Instead, there is a whole book about this person, a self-described spinster. Then there’s the S-word itself, which has carried a heavy negative load since about the seventeenth century. (A minor irritation is the back-cover blurb, which describes this as ‘a book about being human’ – as distinct from being what?) ... (read more)

'The Unsentimental Bloke: Kenneth Cook and Wake in Fright' by Jacqueline Kent

November 2009, no. 316 • 01 November 2009

Kenneth Cook was always a little surprised by the success of Wake in Fright. He dismissed it as a young man’s novel, as indeed it was; he published it in 1961, when he was thirty-two. Among his sixteen other works of fiction he was prouder of Tuna (1967), a partial reimagining of Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea set off the coast of South Australia, and The Man Underground (1977), which dea ... (read more)