Nothing but one big shill

Okay, you best all be warned, the following post is one giant shill, mostly on behalf of yours truly.

I am flat out at the moment with the third year of my PhD, so I am finding it hard to make the time to post as much as I would like on my various cultural obsessions, film noir, crime fiction and pulp. That said I still have a lot going on.

First up, this coming Friday, May 4, from 7pm, I’ll be taking part in the first of what will be a series of free events run by my local bookstore, the wonderful Brunswick Bound, in which authors will be reading from the opening chapter of the their current work. This one has a crime theme and there’ll be four of us reading, including me doing a section from Gunshine State, which was re-released earlier this year by Down and Out Books. So, if you are inner Melbourne north way this Friday and feel like hearing some words and drinking some wine, drop on down, 361 Sydney Road Brunswick.

The second incarnation of Gunshine State has been getting a bit of love recently, the best of which is this review of the site of Canberra based blogger and writer, Tim Nappertime. Tim says of Gunshine State: ‘The novel starts in the sleazy strip of Surfer’s Paradise, and ends up in the quintessentially noir underbelly of Bangkok. Andrew Nette nails the settings for both. Southeast Asia is a part of the world I see writers get wrong all the time, but Nette, who spent many years as a journalist in the region, clearly knows his stuff.’

In the same post, Tim also reviews, Paul Collis’s Dancing Home, which I have not heard of but on the basis of his review need to check out, and Jock Serong’s The Rules of Backyard Cricket, which was one of my top reads of 2016. Tim’s site is well worth keeping an eye on as he really knows his stuff when it comes to noir crime fiction.

The other book I have out at the moment, Girl Gangs, Biker Boys and Real Cool Cats: Pulp Fiction and Youth Culture, 1950-1980, which I co-edited with Iain McIntyre, continues to be well reviewed. Fairfax newspapers columnist, Jane Sullivan, did a great piece on the juvenile delinquent fiction contained in Girl Gangs in her column in last Saturday’s The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald, which you can read here.

The book also got a terrific write up on what has become one of my pop culture go to sites, ‘We are the Mutants’, which includes this great statement: ‘Girl Gangs, Biker Boys, and Real Cool Cats is an important book, a study of the postwar anxieties and unspoken desires that throbbed and squirmed beneath a taut veil of suburban fantasy and mid-century modern decor… The truth is that we don’t need any more books about Shakespeare. We do need more books about the freaks and fairies who come to life inside these countless slender volumes sold for cheap at newspaper stands and drug stores and bus stations.’

You can read the full review here. Whatever the case, I really encourage you to have a good look at the We Are the Mutants site, as it is full of great content.

Last, but not least, just a quick word of encouragement that if you have read and liked either Gunshine State or Girl Gangs, Biker Boys and Real Cool Cats: Pulp Fiction and Youth Culture, 1950-1980, it would be hugely appreciated if you could rate/review either book on Goodreads or Amazon. It is my experience that a lot of readers, especially in Australia, don’t get just how important it is for a books success to have a good presence on those two platforms.