IS THAT THING DIESEL?

PAUL CARTER
ALLEN & UNWIN

CARTER’S previous autobiographical efforts—2005’s Don’t Tell Mum I Work on the Rigs… She Thinks I’m a Piano Player in a Whorehouse and the 2007 follow-up, This is Not a Drill (Just Another Glorious Day in the Oilfield)—are two-fisted tales about wild men in wilder locations, sometimes outright warzones, that should be compulsory reading for any young Aussies thirsting for adventure.

Is That Thing Diesel? (One Man, One Bike and the First Lap Around Australia on Used Cooking Oil), while possessing an equally beaut and self-explanatory title, isn’t quite as rollicking. It starts out all domestic, with Carter and his amazingly tolerant missus having their first kid and ‘nesting’ in Perth, then after taking a little too long to get going, it rushes to its conclusion.

To be fair, though, the author’s attempts to settle into domestic life are amusing and the guts of the book—the quest to do the ‘Big Lap’ of Oz on an environmentally friendly bio-diesel motorbike created by the boffins at Adelaide Uni—is as good as any of his prior work, with larger-than-life characters, ill-advised piss-ups and tricky situations, not to mention a major bingle.

If you enjoy stuff like Ewan McGregor and Charlie Boorman’s TV series Long Way Round (which crops up throughout Is That Thing Diesel?) and 2005 tome Not All Ringers and Cowboys by Drew Radford, you’ll eat up the journey component like bio-bike ‘Black Betty’ eats up the kays… when she’s not breaking a non-standard part or pulling over to avoid a road train doing 130.

While the motorcycle proves its worth as a possible cheaper, cleaner alternative for everyone from farmers to city commuters, the star of the show is Carter himself, who could go to the servo for bread and milk and end up in an adventure (it’s no surprise he was considered to host the local version of Top Gear). Book number four, whose central challenge seems to have been set up during this one, can’t come soon enough!

Is That Thing Diesel? is in bookstores now.

HEY, YOU IN THE BLACK T-SHIRT
MICHAEL CHUGG WITH IAIN SHEDDEN
MACMILLAN

Michael Chugg is not what the literati would call a sympathetic protagonist. Even in his auto-biography (written with Iain Shedden, music critic for The Australian), he is not a man it’s easy to root for—at least most of the time. But he is one of Australia’s most respected music promoters, and he is responsible for a string of tours that will always have a chapter in Australia’s rock history. Continue reading “Reviews – Books: Hey, You In The Black T-Shirt” »

CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR WINNER:

R. Berry, Grovedale, VIC.

Continue reading “WINNER! Off The Set: Porn Stars and Their Partners” »

TOKYO VICE

JAKE ADELSTEIN
SCRIBE PUBLICATIONS

Tokyo Vice is three things: an outsider’s perspective on Japan in the nineties and noughties; an insider’s view of the complex, often contradictory symbiotic relationship between that country’s press, police force and organised crime syndicates; and an example of the classic journalistic dilemma – how far a person is willing to compromise their own principles in search of a story.

American Jake Adelstein goes to Japan as a college student, to learn the language and perhaps even become a Buddhist monk. What he ends up doing is scoring a gig as a crime reporter on the Yomiuri Shimbun, a prestigious newspaper with the largest circulation in the world. It’s an amazing feat for a Westerner, made more amazing by the fact he sticks it out for 12 years, overcoming cultural barriers to produce articles that actually bring about positive social change.

The cases recounted in his memoir range from the quirky – a suit-wearing master pickpocket who treats his illicit enterprise like a 9-to-5 job and returns victims’ wallets to their pockets after removing only the cash – to the ghastly. The latter category includes an exotic animals salesman who also deals in murder for those who oppose or anger him. Then there are the more sensitive issues, such as the way the Japanese justice system deals with the mentally ill, and a particularly sinister form of loan-sharking designed to entrap individuals for life.

We soon learn that there isn’t much Jake won’t do if he thinks there’s a scoop to be had, whether this means going undercover as a male host, brawling with a bouncer or taking tea with a high-ranking member of the Yakuza. However, he never tries to make himself out to be some kind of action hero, and his writing is thoughtful, at times deeply regretful, and peppered with insights into the Japanese mindset, as in sayings like, “To not know and to ask a question is a moment of embarrassment; to not know and not ask is a lifetime of shame.”

Adelstein plays a prime role in investigating the disappearance of English girl Lucie Blackman in 2000, and he makes it his personal crusade to stop the human trafficking operating virtually unchecked in Tokyo’s Roppongi district. He also attempts to expose and bring down a mob boss guilty of screwing over not just innocent civilians, but fellow Yakuza and the US authorities – an undertaking that results in the death threats to himself, his family and his friends that underlie the entire book. A case of publish and you may very well be damned.

The Western Front Diaries
Jonathan King
Simon & Schuster

An incredibly enlightening and exciting book that takes the reader to the front lines and into the war room.  Interspersed, in order throughout the almost three years of battles, with stunning and vivid accounts of the actions by Australian soldiers who secured a Victoria Cross for heroism in action, The Western Front Diaries is as far from a dry military read as you can imagine.  Life on the front lines is captured effectively, with the horrors and mercies of war and men under pressure brought to life throughout its the pages.

Australian commander, Major General John Monash, was long overlooked for promotion, being of Jewish and German descent, but today remains one of the war’s most influential leaders of strategy and of men—Monash introduced the blitzkrieg mode of attack, and some of his battle strategies (Hamel) are to today used by militaries throughout the world as text book examples of perfect manoeuvring.

The Western Front Diaries also puts to rest the notion the battle of Gallipoli was Australia’s defining battle of WWI. While 50,000 soldiers died at Gallipoli, 250,000 died on The Western Front—with 52 Victoria Crosses awarded.  The bloody and brutal battles of Fromelles, Passchendaele, Pozieres, Flanders, and Mouquet Farm are  illuminated brilliantly and weaved with urgency.

But this book isn’t about mathematics and body-counts, it’s about the men who served—their character, their sense of humour, their hopes and their follies.  Author Jonathan King displays as much skill as restraint in the Herculean task of collating the hundreds of personal letters, diaries and photographs borrowed from returned servicemen and their families and distilling the information into sharp day-by-day, month-by-month accounts of what life on The Western Front was truly like.

An excerpt taken from a letter by William Fincham to his sister, in June 1918, reads:

“I must say something about the man walking back from the line.  More than once I have seen two men, an Australian and a German, both wounded, limping toward the dressing stations—each with his arm around the other.  They could scarcely walk alone, but, supporting one another, were going to be dressed by the same Doctor—they who less than an hour previously had rushed together with bayonets or bombs trying to kill each other.”

One of the few assets of war is the camaraderie it engenders between men on the firing line, and the personal stories of our many Victoria Cross winners will have you laughing as much as grieving for the men of our past who fought so valiantly for our country.

The Western Front Diaries brings to life the personalities of the men who fought The Great War as clearly as if you were sharing a trench with them yourself.  This is an outstanding and exceptional book.

DEEPER THAN DEAD

Tami Hoag

Orion

IT’S 1985: A woman’s body is found, half-buried, in parkland by four 10-year-olds. The sleepy California town is shaken by the news that the murdered woman’s lips are glued shut; her eardrums pierced and her eyes blinded.

Continue reading “Reviews – Books: Deeper Than Dead by Tami Hoag” »

A Nest Of Occasionals
Tony Martin
Picador

Review: Suzan Ryan

IS THERE anything Tony Martin can’t do well?  The wry-and-dry Martin first captured our attention in the 1980s with television series The D Generation and The Late Show, before hitting mainstream audiences with his massively successful radio show with Mick Molloy (Martin & Molloy).

Martin then turned his talents to screenwriting (Bad Eggs) and even secured an ARIA Award for Best Comedy Album—seemingly it was only a mater of time before he tried his hand at print, with debut novel Lolly Scramble (2005). Following this successful print is new book, A Nest of Occasionals—a collection of stories encompassing the bizarre and challenging shit that the perpetually cheeky Martin gets into when he’s not in front of the camera.

From attending a racist dinner at an Indian restaurant and screwing up an awards night with dirty language, to censoring tits from National Geographic and discovering some awkward truths about his grandfather, A Nest of Occasionals is funny, insightful, thoughtful and also a tad annoying, because writing novels proves to be just another thing that Mr Martin does better than most.

Spade And Archer
Joe Gores
Hachette

Review:  Suzan Ryan

THE prequel to Dashiell Hammett’s crime classic, The Maltese Falcon, Spade and Archer provides noir lovers with detailed character studies revealing how Sam Spade, one of the world’s most iconic detectives, became the hard-boiled, straight-shooting and canny operator we know and love.

Gores creates, seemingly effortlessly, an enthralling and atmospheric recreation of San Francisco in the 1920s—where bootleg booze, broads, gold smugglers, waterfront thugs and grizzled cops vie for attention in a series of cases delivered to the PI’s front door.

But the book also reveals the history behind the famous Spade and Archer feud, introducing the two to their uneasy business partnership and secretly shared affections of Spade’s former lover, Iva—now Archer’s wife.

However, even more fascinating is the story of a courtship between Spade and a female client, and its devastating conclusion, which destroyed the hopes and heart of the Spade we later come to know. If you’re a fan of The Maltese Falcon, or noir mysteries in general, this book is definitely for you.