Contemporary Classics 65-95 The Best Australian Short Fiction 1965-1995 edited by Don Anderson 1996

Contents:
"Reconstruction of an Event" - Glenda Adams     © 1979, from The Hottest Night of the Century
"The Milk" - Jessica Anderson     © 1987 from Stories from the Warm Zone
"Hunting the Wild Pineapple" - Thea Astley     © 1979, from Hunting the Wild Pineapple
"A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I,J,K,L,M,N,O,P,Q,R,S,T,U,V,W,X,Y,Z" - Murray Bail     © 1975, from Contemporary Portraits and Other Stories
"The Powerful Owl" - Candida Baker     © 1994, from The Powerful Owl
"Country Girl Again" - Jean Bedford     © 1979, from Country Girl Again
"The Woodpecker Toy Fact" - Carmel Bird     © 1987, from The Woodpecker Toy Fact
"Dr B. and the Students" - David Brooks     © 1990, from Sheep and the Diva
"American Dreams" - Peter Carey     © 1994, from Collected Stories
"Frank" - Moya Costello     © 1994, from Small Ecstasies
"Xmas in the Bush" - Anna Couani     © 1983, from The Train
"Party" - Peter Cowan     © 1965, from The Empty Street
"New York, New York" - Rosemary Creswell     © 1986, from Colouring In
"Syndrome" - Garry Disher     © 1991, from Flamingo Gate
"Radiant Heat" - Robert Drewe     © 1989, from The Bay of Contented Men
"Place of Birth" - Beverley Farmer     © 1985, from Home Time
"A Word in the Hand" - Flacco     © 1995, from Burnt Offerings
"A Vigil" - Helen Garner     © 1992, from Cosmo Cosmolino
"Miracle of the Waters" - Zeny Giles     © 1989, from Miracle of the Water
"A Patron of the Arts" - Kerryn Goldsworthy     © 1989, from North of the Moonlight Sonnata
"The Booster Shot" - Peter Goldsworthy     © 1993, from Little Deaths
"Look on My Works" - Kate Grenville     © 1989, from Expressway edited by Helen Daniel
"Cherubs" - Marion Halligan     © 1993, from The Worry Box
"Getting to the Pig" - Barry Hill     © 1978, from A Rim of Blue
"Bondi" - Janette Turner Hospital     © 1990, from Isobars
"Five Acre Virgin" - Elizabeth Jolley     © 1976, from Five Acre Virgin
"Burning Off" - Joan London     © 1986, from Sister Ships
"Velodrome" - Angelo Loukakis     © 1986, from Vernacular Dreams
"The Duel Catalogue" - Richard Lunn     © 1990, from The Taxidermists's Dance
"Camille Pissarro 1830-1903" - Morris Lurie     © 1985, from The Night We Ate the Sparrow
"Southern Skies" - David Malouf     © 1989, from Antipodes
"A Good Marriage" - Olga Masters     © 1982, from The Home Girls
"Nails of Love, Nails of Death" - James McQueen     © 1984, from Uphill Runner
"Afterthoughts" - Gillian Mears     © 1990, from Fineflour
"The Annual Conference of 1930 and South Coast Dada" - Frank Moorhouse     © 1974, from The Electrical Experience
"Boy Blue" - Gerald Murnane     © 1995, from Emerald Blue
"Boy Meets Girl" - Hal Porter     © 1980, from Hal Porter
"Gloria" - John Tranter     © 1992, from The Floor of Heaven
"Hitler's Driver" - Carolyn Van Langenberg     © 1995
"stories my mother told me" and "dad" - Ania Walwicz     © 1989, from Boat
"Going Home" - Archie Weller     © 1986, from Going Home: Stories
"Women's Business" - Nadia Wheatley     © 1984, from The Night Tolkein Died
"Singing Birds" - Michael Wilding     © 1994, from This is For You
"Botany Cemetery" - Gerard Windsor     © 1990, from Family Lore
"Thomas Awkner Floats" - Tim Winton     © 1985, from Scission
"The Weight of a Man" - Amy Witting     © 1961, from Coast to Coast 1961-62 edited by Hal Porter

First Paragraph from the Introduction:

Here's how it began. March, 1994, a Thursday, 10.07am. My first-year English tutorial, twelve literate students, most straight out of high-school, a couple somewhat older, perhaps women of the world. As they settled down, one indicated that she wanted to sit next to her 'friend'. Thinking of deflecting them momentarily from the task at hand, Milton or Marvell or whichever dead white male, I said, invoking a living, Australian, female, '"Two Friends": has any of you read Helen Garner?' This was not merely desultory, for I like to recommend Garner as a model of lucid prose, must to be admired and emulated. None had. 'Has any of heard of Helen Garner?' I continued, recklessly. Not one. This was, you will note, before The First Stone thrust Garner into the inescapable limelight. I decided to ask the same question of my 11am tutorial. Same answer. So of twenty-four first-year students who had chosen to enter the most venerable Literature school - not Communications, not Cultural Studies, note - in the country, not one had heard of one of its most esteemed short story writers. The H.S.C. system, whatever its virtues, must surely stand accused of a narrowness of focus, of breeding tunnel-vision. At home that evening, I told my wife, Angela, how shocked I was. She, ever practical, ever optimistic, said simply: 'Do an anthology.' Here it is.

From the Vintage paperback edition, 1996.

This page and its contents are copyright © 1999-2002 by Perry Middlemiss, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.

Last modified: April 30, 2002.