Submitted by Paul Daley on
Fifty years on, the second book in the Meredith trilogy is an evocation from afar by an author lost among his own people
Fifty years after Clean Straw for Nothing won the prodigal Australian writer George Johnston a second Miles Franklin award, the novel has aged as a rich critique of social change, cultural complacency and the rise of smug nationalism in Menzies-era Australia.
It was the second novel in Johnston’s semi-autobiographical “Meredith trilogy” – chronicling the progress of David Meredith from a childhood in dreary Melbourne suburbia to gun reporter to disenchanted expatriate novelist – but it is so much more than that.
At its core, Clean Straw for Nothing is a novel exploring literary expatriatism
Related: Peter Handke hits out at criticism of Nobel win
Related: British lead nominations for world's richest children's book prize
- Log in to post comments