Kiernan, Brian (Ed.). The Most Beautiful Lies: A Collection of Stories by Five Major Contemporary Writers, Bail, Carey, Lure, Moorhouse and Wilding

Description

The Most Beautiful Lies: A Collection of Stories by Five Major Contemporary Writers, Bail, Carey, Lure, Moorhouse and Wilding
Selected by Brian Kiernan.

Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1977.
First Edition softback.

A short story collection by four upcoming male writers of the 1970s was selected by academic Brian Kiernan and is another example of the new male writers being promoted under A&R publisher Richard Walsh.

Kiernan’s new literary movement were the heirs of Henry Lawson, as paid tribute to by Bail in his version of ‘The Drover’s Wife’ published here. In retrospect, the collection shows how readily new women’s voices were excluded by academic critics and the mainstream publishers in the late 1970s and explains why women’s presses had become a necessity.

Beautiful Lies includes alternative versions of a failed wake for Jack Kerouac by Moorhouse and Wilding, each set in the 1960s hard drinking Sydney literary scene known as the Push. Both stories are full of marvelous descriptions of Balmain bohemia and the Newcastle Hotel, the Push’s long-gone drinking hole.

Condition: Worn spine. Stain inside cover and indent marks (possibly from a book stand) on first dozen pages. Otherwise tight and unmarked.