Ash Barty’s engaging memoir reveals her struggle with self-belief

Book critics Steven Carroll and Cameron Woodhead cast their eyes over recent non-fiction and fiction releases. Here are their reviews.

Non-fiction pick of the week

Credit:

My Dream Time
Ash Barty, HarperCollins, $49.99

The country watched when Ash Barty won Wimbledon and the Australian Open, but only a few knew what it took her to get there. She might be young to be writing a memoir, but she’s not young in experience, as she documents in engaging writing her journey to the top and what it cost.

She was always called a prodigy, which was both boon and burden. Through her early career she was constantly on the move, often successful, but with this inner voice telling her that she was a failure. She was also becoming aware of the spectre of depression, from which her father suffered.

After a long break, she returned in 2016 and, through ups and downs, backed by a strong team, eventually mustered the self-belief to match her talent. Then she walked away as world No. 1. She also weaves in discovering her Indigenous ancestry, and the centrality of home.

Credit:

A Message from Ukraine
Volodymyr Zelensky, Hutchinson Heinemann, $24.99

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, a former comedian and actor, has got to be the most singular politician of the age, and a most unlikely neo-Churchillian figure. But, as these speeches (selected by Zelensky) show, he’s a very astute war leader.

There are no Churchillian flourishes; they are plain speaking, targeted appeals to the outside world (US Congress, British House of Commons and the German Bundestag) for aid, military and diplomatic – much in the way Churchill focused on the United States.

He says Ukraine chose to be European not Russian, and the invasion is the price. But it makes the war European, and beyond Europe, a war for democracy. Not only has the Ukrainian army proved highly formidable, these speeches show how comprehensively Zelensky has out-smarted the Russians in the battle for international hearts and minds.

Credit:

Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing
Matthew Perry, Headline, $34.99

Matthew Perry, most famous for Friends, thought about calling his memoir “Unaccompanied Minor”. He should have, because it’s a poignant motif, the key theme that runs through his book being loneliness and how to deal with it.

When he was five, he flew alone from Canada (where his mother was Pierre Trudeau’s press secretary) to be with his estranged father. At 15, he moved to LA to live with his father, but instead of a tennis pro, he became an actor, and while much of the memoir is about his career, especially that sitcom and the immediate chemistry between the actors, it’s the early stuff – the making, if you like, of the artistic sensibility – that I liked most.

Along the way there’s alcoholism, relationships, a near-death experience and coming through. A tumbler of heaven and hell in equal measure.

Credit:

The Teal Revolution
Margot Saville, Hardie Grant, $22.99

John Howard called them “groupies”, but by the end of the federal election night the “teals” had dethroned an array of sitting Liberal Party members, including treasurer and touted future leader Josh Frydenberg, seriously challenging the accepted two-party system in the process.

Whether this constitutes a “revolution” (especially in light of the Victorian results) is another matter. This lively piece of long-form journalism goes to the nitty-gritty of how the movement came about, the crucial backing of Simon Holmes a Court’s Climate 200, the meetings in New South Wales, Victoria and Western Australia where strategies were thrashed out and candidates selected (Wentworth is fascinating), and the sometimes graceless way the shell-shocked Liberals responded to defeat.

It captures a truly significant moment in our politics.

Fiction pick of the week

Credit:

Saha
Cho Nam-Joo, Simon & Schuster, $32.99

Author of the bestselling Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982, embraced as a stark literary contribution to the #MeToo movement, Cho Nam-Joo turns her attention in her latest novel from the pervasive sexism of South Korean society to its brutal exploitation of an impoverished underclass.

Saha takes place in the hyper-capitalist dystopia of “Town”, a country controlled by a mysterious cabal known as the Seven Premiers. When Su is found dead in an abandoned car, the investigation focuses on the poorest echelon of society, forced to live on the Saha Estates.

Jin-Kyung’s brother, Dok-yung, was in a relationship with the victim. Without strong evidence, he becomes the prime suspect, and his sister embarks on a quest to clear his name. But the deck is stacked against have-nots like her, and Jin-Kyung runs up against powerful and corrupt forces conspiring to hide a shocking reality. It’s a sharp gut-punch of a novel that blends crime fiction with withering social critique.

Credit:

Silver Leaves
Gladys Milroy, Magabala, $24.99

Ninety-six-year-old Palyku woman Gladys Milroy was taken from her family and sent to an orphanage as a young child. Her connection to storytelling runs deep – Milroy is matriarch of a clan that includes Sally Morgan, author of My Place – and this gentle tale for littler kids offers the comfort and wisdom of a bush parable.

One evening, Owl and Night-Parrot are disturbed when a crowd of day-birds descends on their white gum tree. Irritation turns to compassion as they discover the disaster that made the birds homeless, and they lead a mission to grow new trees, replacing the ones that have been destroyed. It’s an Indigenous fable with an ecological theme.

Taking in the beauty of the Australian bush and the importance of working together to meet challenges, Silver Leaves tells of resilience and renewal in the face of disaster and comes to us in a handsome cloth hardback, with charming black-and-white illustrations.

Credit:

Going Rogue
Janet Evanovich, Headline Review, $32.99

Stephanie Plum is the very definition of irrepressible. Going Rogue is the 29th outing for Janet Evanovich’s kickass heroine – a New Jersey bail bondswoman turned sleuth – and her uninhibited, wise-cracking comic crime capers are still going strong.

When office manager Connie Rosolli doesn’t show up for work one Monday morning, it spirals into a hostage situation. Her abductor calls, demanding an enigmatic coin left as collateral by a man who, inconveniently, has been murdered. Hunting down the coin and discovering its significance to the perp won’t be easy. Luckily, Stephanie has a motley crew – her best friend Lula, her grandma, her boyfriend, and of course, the hunky Ranger – to help her.

Will they be enough, or must Stephanie, as the kidnapper gets more threatening, throw the rule book out the window to get the job done? Fans are likely already addicted to this trashy and entertaining series, and don’t need a review. Newcomers will find these flamboyant action woman adventures are best read from the beginning.

Credit:

The Resemblance
Lauren Nossett, Macmillan, $34.99

This crime novel delves into the toxic culture of US college fraternities. As the daughter of a professor, Detective Marlitt Kaplan knows more than she wants to know about them, and she knows too well the cone of silence that can prevent their misdeeds coming to light.

When a member of Kappa Phi Omicron, Jay Kemp, falls victim to a hit-and-run, Marlitt investigates, letting her personal vendetta against frat houses fuel her determination to uncover the truth of the crime. Her doggedness unearths some puzzling features of the homicide – why, for instance, did the driver look identical to the victim? – but it also gets her into hot water and risks derailing the case.

The Resemblance is atmospheric crime fiction with some genuinely tense, page-turning sequences, although other revelations are so heavily foreshadowed, they’re easy to predict and the novel loses steam towards the end.

The Booklist is a weekly newsletter for book lovers from books editor Jason Steger. Get it delivered every Friday.