Meanjin

Like Franz Kafka’s The Trial for the post-truth era, at once “surreal, polemical, and fun” (The Telegraph). Sterling Beckenbauer is plunged into a terrifying and nonsensical world one morning when they are attacked, then unfairly arrested, in their neighborhood in London. With the help of their friends, Sterling hosts a trial of their own in order to exonerate themselves and to hold the powers that be to account. Sterling Karat Gold, in the words of Kamila Shamsie, is “a madly brilliant and deeply sane novel that reveals surrealism as possibly the most effective way of talking about the political moment we find ourselves in.” In it, Isabel Waidner concocts a world replete with bullfighters, high fashion, DIY theater, the Beach Boys, and time-traveling spaceships. The acclaimed winner of the 2021 Goldsmiths Prize for fiction that breaks the mold and extends the possibilities of the form, this novel explores the phantasmagoric nature of contemporary life, especially for nonbinary migrants, and daringly revises how solidarity and justice might be sought and won. Sterling Karat Gold couldn’t be a better North American introduction to a writer with an irresistible style and unforgettable vision.

The December issue of Meanjin is titled- Words. It features a special series of non-fiction pieces in which Australian writers respond to one-word titles, including- Sarah Krasnostein on Home Tony Birch on (Dis)loyalty Bruce Pascoe on Capital Kate Holden on Elements Christos Tsiolkas on Resentment Maxine Beneba-Clarke on Certainty Scott Ludlum on Defiance Bernard Keane on Betrayal Anna Spargo-Ryan on Joy Mandy Ord on Lost Dan Dixon on Hunger Omar Sakr on Jab (Sha'ara) Karen Wyld on Soar Plus- Henry Reynolds on the Dark Emu culture wars, Fatima Measham on what it means to love animals, Daniel Nour on the white gaze in literary criticism, and more essays from Claire G. Coleman, Ben Walter, Soon-Tzu Speechley and Peter Craven. There's new fiction from Arnold Zable, Anneliz Erese, Carol Lefevre and Ashley Goldberg, a lively review section and a dozen new poems.

The novel that launched the career of one of Australia’s greatest writers, following the doomed infatuations of a young, single mother, enthralled by the excesses of Melbourne's late-70s counterculture The name Helen Garner commands near-universal acclaim. A master novelist, short-story writer, and journalist, Garner is best known for her frank, unsparing, and intricate portraits of Australian life, often drawn from the pages of her own journals and diaries. Now, in a newly available US edition, comes the disruptive debut that established Garner's masterful and quietly radical literary voice. Set in Australia in the late 1970s, Monkey Grip follows single mother and writer Nora as she navigates the tumultuous cityscape of Melbourne’s bohemian underground, often with her young daughter Gracie in tow. When Nora falls in love with the flighty Javo, she becomes snared in the web of his addiction. And as their tenuous relationship disintegrates, Nora struggles to wean herself off a love that feels impossible to live without. When it first published in 1977, Monkey Grip was both a sensation and a lightning rod. While some critics praised the upstart Garner for her craft, many scorned her gritty depictions of the human body and all its muck, her frankness about sex and drugs and the mess of motherhood, and her unabashed use of her own life as inspiration. Today, such criticism feels old-fashioned and glaringly gendered, and Monkey Grip is considered a modern masterpiece. A seminal novel of Australia’s turbulent 1970s and all it entailed—communal households, music, friendships, children, love, drugs, and sex—Monkey Grip now makes its long-overdue American debut.

On the afternoon of first contact Cook’s crew shot two Gwaegal men who opposed them from the shore. Cook observed, correctly, all they seem’d to want was for us to be gone. In the December issue of Meanjin Paul Daley takes a long look at the complex legacy of James Cook. In a timely essay ahead of the Cook sestercentennial in 2020, Daley digs deep into the many and conflicting strands of this Australian colonial foundation story. Was Cook a blameless master navigator? Or should he be connected intimately to the dispossession of First Nations peoples that followed his voyage of 1770? Also in this issue, writing from: Gabrielle Chan, Bri Lee, Greg Jericho, Tony Birch, Gregory Day, Robbie Arnott, Ruby Hamad, Mesh Tennakoon, Carmel Bird, Oliver Mestitz, Emma Marie Jones, Belinda Rule, Anthony Lawrence, Geoff Page, Jaya Savige and more.