Great Western Highway

Great Western Highway

In our hyperbolic, media-driven world, can we find ways of being, and maybe even being together?

Thirty-something Nick is walking down Parramatta Road's six lanes of thundering traffic to see his former girlfriend Penny for the first time since they agreed to be 'just friends'. By the novel's end, he is racing back up that same road so he doesn't lose her.

Nick and Penny's awkward romance is played out against the backdrop of high capitalism and the rise of the digital age.

Through Nick we revisit the Gulf War watched on a rented TV in a London flat; we meet the girl who broke his heart; and veteran political journalist Kerry O'Brien interviews Margaret Thatcher in a pastiche of Molly Bloom's soliloquy.

Amongst casualised employment, media saturation and a constant push for market innovation, what happens to the fundamental human need for belonging? What happens to relationships between people when they are asked to build their lives on quicksand?

Anthony Macris is an Australian writer, literary critic and Associate Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Technology, Sydney. His recent memoir, When Horse Became Saw: A journey through autism (Penguin, 2011) was shortlisted for the Prime Minister's Literary Award in 2012. His first novel, Capital, Volume One, won him a listing as Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Australian Novelist, and was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize.

Great Western Highway
UWA Publishing
Author: Anthony Macris
ISBN: 9781742584157
Price: $29.95

 

 

 

10 questions for Tony Macris

1. When I was a child I wrote ....

... short stories with angels and demons in them. I also wrote lyrics for glam rock songs that I wanted to compose, but couldn't because I didn't know how to play an instrument. It was the early 1970s!


2. The person who encouraged/inspired me to write was ...

... James Joyce. I was stunned by the architecture and inventiveness of Ulysses, and the wordplay of Finnegan's Wake.


3. My favourite author is ...

... Gustave Flaubert. As I've matured as a writer, I've come back to Flaubert again and again. Superb stylist, sublime ironist. He's a total inspiration. Madame Bovary and Bouvard & Pecuchet are favourites.


4. I write in ...

... permanent hope I'll produce something worth reading!


5. I write when ...

... I can. I have a son with autism, and a full-time academic job.


6. I keep my published works in ...

... the top shelf of a very nice wooden bookcase.


7. On the day my first book was published, I ...

... bought some CDs to celebrate. One them was Nick Cave's Murder Ballads. This was a big expenditure at the time. I was living like a churchmouse to devote myself to my writing. My only paid work was a few part-time casual hours teaching English language to migrants at TAFE.


8. At the moment, I'm writing ...

... several things. Another memoir, a book of essays. I've got another novel planned.


9. When I'm not writing, I'm ...
... working at my academic job, doing housework, or being with my family. Most evenings at the end of the day my partner and I watch a couple of episodes of a comedy series. The Big Bang Theory is a current favourite. We love Sheldon.


10. When I'm stuck for an idea/word/phrase, I ...

... listen to music, dip into a favourite author, or go for a bike ride.