Book Reading

Transcript

This transcript was typed from a recording of the program. The ABC cannot guarantee its complete accuracy because of the possibility of mishearing and occasional difficulty in identifying speakers.

2.05pm Mon - Fri
4 to 29 December
The Shark Net
by Robert Drewe
Robert Drewe reads The Shark Net - subtitled "Memories and Murder" - his evocative and compelling memoir of his early years in Perth. When Drewe was a boy, his family moved from Melbourne to Perth, where his father took up the position of state manager for Dunlop Rubber. Into this ordinary childhood in the beachside suburb of Perth intrudes the shadow of murder, and the figure of a multiple murderer who is more closely connected to the family than anyone imagines. This man works briefly for Robert's father's company, and one of the victims is a young friend of Robert's. Embarking on his early career as a journalist, Drewe reports on the murder trial.
In her review of The Shark Net in the New York Review of Books on October 19, the novelist Joyce Carol Oates writes: "Robert Drewe has written a moving and unpretentious memoir of a precocious youth, a bittersweet tribute to youth's optimism that might 'always be replenished by a good story, a glimpse of the sea, and a particular angle of sunlight'."
Robert Drewe is one of Australia's leading writers. He has published fiction, non-fiction, plays, screenplays, journalism and film criticism. His novel The Drowner won the NSW, WA, SA and Victorian Premiers' awards for fiction; the 1997 book of the Year Award and the 1998 Adelaide Festival Prize. (The Drowner was read in The Book Reading in 1997 by Patrick Dickson). Abridged by Ron Blair. Reader: Robert Drewe
Sound engineer: Andrei Shabunov
Producer: Richard Buckham