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‘If one of the truisms of humour is that we laugh at what scares us, then Things Bogans Like mineslaughs out of some of the most appalling antisocial behaviour.’ Things Bogans Like, reviewed — Page 7

THE SUN-HERALD SUNDAY, JANUARY 30, 2011 5

FOOTNOTES

The girl with theStieg bookMillennium series authorStieg Larsson’s partner of 32 years,Eva Gabrielsson, says she willfinish his fourth book, started justbefore he died, if she can securethe rights. Larsson died of a heartattack in 2004 before thepublication of The Girl with theDragon Tattoo, The Girl WhoPlayed with Fire and The Girl WhoKicked the Hornet’s Nest. Thecrime series has sold more than45 million copies worldwide andLarsson had written about200 pages of the fourth book in theseries when he died. Gabrielsson,who is in dispute with Larsson’sfamily over his inheritance (hedied without leaving a will and thecouple had no children) states inher just-released memoirMillennium, Stieg and Me: ‘‘I amable to finish it . . . Stieg and I oftenwrote together.’’

Endangered craftsAuthor and arts writer Leta Keenswill be at Stanton Library at 1pm onWednesday to discuss her bookShoes for the Moscow Circus, a lookbehind the scenes of Australiantrades and industries fastdisappearing in the modern world.With photographer Oliver Strewe,Keens visited 25 factories andworkshops, including an umbrellamaker, a cricket ball factory, ataxidermist, a bicycle maker, atannery and a dolls’ hospital andtells the stories of the charactersand their crafts. Stanton Library isat 234 Miller Street, North Sydney.Admission is free. Details fromConstant Reader Bookshop atconstantreader.com.au.

Authentic voicesAuthors Michael Wilding andInez Baranay will be at LeichhardtLibrary on Thursday at 6pm,talking to Australian Writers’Network director Irina Dunn abouttheir latest novels. The Prisoner ofMount Warning, by Wilding, andWith the Tiger, by Baranay, arepublished by Press On Publishing,set up by Wilding in 2009 to publishand promote new Australian fictiondirectly by subscription. On itswebsite, Press On boldly declaresthat it ‘‘brings the voice of theindividual writer with theminimum of intervention, notgenetically engineered by editors,nor contaminated with additivesby agents’’. Leichhardt Library is atthe Italian Forum, 23 Norton Street,Leichhardt. The talk is free. Tobook, call Irina Dunn on0403 486 363 or emailirinadid@ozemail.com.au.

All together nowNine Sydney-based literarysocieties, each dedicated to asingle author, have formed anumbrella group in the cause offostering communicationbetween the groups andencouraging public involvement.Called Literary Societies of Sydney,the loose federation includes TheDylan Thomas Society of Australia,The Jane Austen Society of Sydney,The D. H. Lawrence Society ofAustralia, The NSW DickensSociety, The Australian BronteAssociation, The Kipling Society ofAustralia, The Anthony TrollopeGroup of Australia, The SydneyPassengers (Sherlock HolmesSociety) and The Byron Society inAustralia. More atwww.litsocsyd.net.

TerrySmyth

footnotes@fairfaxmedia.com.au

Three years aftergraduating, this was thenovel that rekindled myappetite for novels.Huge, sprawling,bizarre, unpredictableand addictive, itreminded me thatnovels are meant forentertainment, not forwriting essays about.

The Postcard CenturyTom Phillips

Something a bit different. In this massive book,Phillips assembles 100 years’ worth of picturepostcards, from the start of the 20th century to

the end, transcribing whatwas written on them by theoriginal sender, as well asshowing the picture. Theresult is an astoundingaccount of changingpreoccupations. If everthere was an example of apicture being worth athousand words, this is it.But the words are worth afair amount, too.

The Little StrangerSarah Waters

This was the most recent thing I read thatreminded me why I think a good novel is

impossible to beat. AGothic horror story setagainst a landscape madereal by Waters’s uncannyeye for detail, it’sunbelievably exciting andaddictive and proves thateven in a busy, restless,X Factor-watching world,there’s nothing quite likethe thrill of a great book.

Mark Watson is an Englishcomedian and author, whose novels have beendescribed by Stephen Fry as ‘‘brilliantly hilariousand hilariously brilliant’’. His third and latestnovel, Eleven, was launched at the EdinburghFringe Festival.

She’s very direct and straightforward.I respect that. Selwa’s the only person onearth I’m guaranteed to listen to. Tara Moss

TEN OF SELWA ANTHONY’S STAR AUTHORS

TaraMoss. JuanitaPhillips. KateMorton. AndrewDaddo. BessieBardot.

Toni Lamond. DiMorrissey. PeterPhelps. JacintaTynan. SorrelWilby.

stubborn character myself. Selwa’sthe only person on earth I’mguaranteed to listen to.”

Age may not have quite weariedher – she flexed a toned biceps to herwriters on Sassy day – but thatdoesn’t mean Selwa Anthony isprepared to reveal that age, sitting inthe cream-tiled lounge of thewaterfront Pyrmont apartment sheshares with her second husband,Brian Dennis, a former bookcompany sales representative.

She once said: “I thought I wasgoing to be a very happy wife andhave a few children and have ahusband who was going to supportme.” Then she added, surprisinglyin light of what she became: “I hadno ambition other than to be a goodwife and mother.”

She had travelled the world for18 months and come home toAustralia at 21, feeling pressured tomarry. Even as she signed thechurch registry in 1962, marrying aGreek man, she questioned givingup her maiden name. “I marriedtoo young and married for all thewrong reasons.”

Brought up in the NSW countrytown of Cowra, Anthony was raisedto think for herself. One of sevenchildren, she and siblings Dawn,Elaine, Yvette, Roger, Eden andJosephine lived above their parents’drapers shop. She had her bookepiphany at eight when her father,Abraham, gave her a library card.

A well-educated man fromLebanon who spoke fluent Englishand read the classics, Abraham hadcome to Australia at 21 and fell in

love not only with his future wife,also named Josephine, who’d comefrom a Lebanese village to Australiaduring her teens, but withAustralian writers.

Josephine, their mother,devoured bodice-ripping page-turners. “My mother always hadempathy,” Anthony recalls. Sheinsists they never faced racialprejudice growing up in a countrytown – her eldest sister Dawndisagrees – though the family didmuch to fit in, her parents alwaysinsisting the children speak English.

She can’t speak Arabic butremembers her family gettingtogether with other Lebanesefamilies in neighbouring towns onweekends, the men and womenbetting on races then playing pokerinto the night.

“The room would be full ofsmoke,” she says. “Nobody was everdrunk but there’d be curse words inArabic and tinkling of coins.”

Anthony never saw her motherwithout make-up, hence “I like tokeep the glamour in books if I can”.She thought she’d end up a fashiondesigner but instead she married,though for 18 months she worked as

an assistant at the Grahame BookCompany in Sydney until the birthof her first child. The marriagelasted nearly 14 years, producingtwo children, daughters Lindaand Anthea.

“When I left, I didn’t own anything.I walked out of a very, very badmarriage and I had the best familysupport . . . I just knew the day I had to.There was just no staying;I think I would have committedsuicide. I knew there was Valium inthe cupboard and I thought if I tookX amount – and then I thought, ‘What

will happen to these two little girls?’’’She went back to the Grahame

Book Company’s store on the cornerof Pitt and Hunter streets, becamemanager and built up the business,specialising in Australian and othertitles difficult to get elsewhere,offering personalised service.

In 1977, when The Thorn Birdswas published, author ColleenMcCullough, fresh from signingcopies of her blockbuster at DavidJones – oddly, in the lingeriedepartment – was chuffed to findthat at the Grahame Book CompanyAnthony had laid out some of herfavourite things in readiness: coffee,

sugar, an ashtray and white and pinkflowers. They became firm buddies.

In 1978 Anthony had anastrologist in for a book signing. Theastrologist suggested that Scorpiowould be the star sign mostcompatible for her. The next day, inwalked Brian, a book company salesrep whom “I couldn’t stand”. Sheasked him his star sign. “Taurus,” hesaid. “Would you like a cup ofcoffee?” she asked.

They married in 1981. Anthonyremained with the Grahame BookCompany for nine years, until, atMcCullough’s strong suggestion,she became an agent and set up theSelwa Anthony Author ManagementAgency in 1984, which became afull-time concern in 1988.

Jody Lee, an editor and one ofAnthony’s former assistants, saysher old boss can be “tough, shedoesn’t put up with any crap”. Leeoffers the example of covers: the“strong Selwa look”, for instance,typified in a Kate Morton novelcover; a big picture of a woman’sface. Publishers usually “cave in”and give her the cover she wants.

Anthony was promotingAustralian popular fiction longbefore the publishers were keen,Mark MacLeod says: “Twenty yearsago they’d say, ‘Oh, Selwa’s been inthe office peddling crap again.’ Nowthey’re busting for it.”

But she also “hangs onto peoplelonger than she should,” MacLeodsays. “She has a sentimentalattachment to people. There’snothing ruthless about her.Sometimes I wish she would havethat about her but she never will.”

About 10 years ago, Anthony wentthrough a bout of panic attacks,insomnia and depression for10 months. Her authors didn’t know.“My father died at 54, he committedsuicide,” she reflects, quietly. “I lookback now and think: if we knew thesymptoms, we could have savedhim. But in those days you didn’tknow that.”

She finally saw a doctor, thehusband of one of her authors, whoput her on a tiny dose ofantidepressants. She still hasoccasional therapy; “I get thedemons out of me by sitting andtalking to someone.”

Anthony’s daughter Linda hasworked as her assistant but has nodesigns on taking over. Anthonysays the days when she spends a lotof time developing authors aregetting “less and less” and she couldclose off her books to newcomersand still have a profitable businesswith her established authors.

But with so many people relyingon her, it’s hard to imagine thegrandmother of two stoppingcompletely. After her awards nightand our interview, we talk again onthe telephone. “People see me astough,” she says, “but I’m not. I’mreally gentle. I’m a paper tiger.”