Works of fiction

‘An Academic Death’

A short story set in a familiar world.
[READ]


'The Very Worst Secret'

Another short story in the same familiar world. The idea for this one came from a newspaper report about someone (not an academic), whose past I remembered rather differently.
[READ]

'Goodbye John Howard'

A character sketch set in Chokoville - a name which may have something to do with memories of a Sydney backyard where the chokos had set out to take over the city.
[READ]


‘The Ship of Fools’

Comic fiction works best in short doses. The misery it describes is too horrible to be looked at for too long. So I wrote two short novels and put them together as North and South.

North is set on an island off the Queensland coast in the 1990s and South takes place in Melbourne and Queenscliff in the 1950s.

'The Ship of Fools' is a draft extract from South.

Things you should know - the book is about the Moyle family. Alix is involved in an incestuous affair with his sister Catherine; Martin is a writer; Theodora is a cocker spaniel; Henry Handel Moyle lives in Queenscliff, and Finisterre is the name of the Moyle's Melbourne home.

If I was writing this today I would be able to people my Ship of Fools with even more ghastly characters than those who walked up the gangway when I wrote it.

[READ EXTRACT]

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