Randolph Stow: an Australian literary legend revisited

It’s a celebration of all things Randolph Stow, as Text Classics republishes To the Islands and Tourmaline.

More about Randolph Stow’s life will be revealed in a biography by Suzanne Falkiner.

My one brush with Randolph Stow was in early 2007 soon after I’d taken over the editorship of The Australian Literary Review.

I wrote to Stow in England, asking if there were any chance he’d like to contribute to the ALR: an essay, a review of a book that had taken his fancy, a poem, whatever he pleased. An answer came from Harwich, written on a card in an elegant hand and full of charm and grace. I could not for the life of me find it before writing this column, but my recollection is Stow was grateful for the invitation but had rather given up the writing game. He promised he would be in touch if that situation changed. I think, but cannot swear, he signed off as Mick Stow, as he was known. The card will turn up — it’s probably hiding in the same place as The Day of the Triffids, which I know I own but had to buy the other day so the 10-year-old and I could read it together — and when it does I will be sure to put it somewhere safe, as it’s a bit of a treasure.

I wrote to Stow back then because I was interested in connecting the fledgling ALR to Australia’s literary expatriates, people such as Clive James, Peter Porter, Peter Carey, Shirley Hazzard, Hazel Rowley, Geraldine Brooks. But there was a personal curiosity, too, as I was — am — a great admirer of Stow’s novels, which I first read as a young man. My top three are To the Islands, which won the Miles Franklin in its second year, 1958, Tourmaline (1963) and The Merry-Go-Round in the Sea (1965), the first two of which are republished this month under the Text Classics banner. So is Visitants (1979), which is Geordie Williamson’s favourite. Nicolas Rothwell reviews the Text Classics editions this week. The gifted WH Chong has done a wonderful job on the covers, though another little treasure of mine (and one I could find) is my 1959 second edition of To the Islands, published by McDonald & Co of London.

Stow’s life and works will be discussed next Saturday afternoon, August 29, at a NSW Writers Centre event at the State Library of NSW. Honouring Randolph Stow will feature Gabrielle Carey, author of Moving Among Strangers, a memoir of her family’s connection to the writer; Suzanne Falkiner, who is writing a biography of Stow; poet and documentary maker Richard Tipping; and West Australian author Alice Nelson. Stow’s niece, Genevieve McArthur, will make some opening remarks. This free event is sold out but I’m told walk-ins should be possible on the day. Details: [e-mail] or call [phone].

I want to thank Stow’s sister, Helen McArthur, for making available the wonderful photograph published here of the 21-year-old writer at Forrest River Mission in the Kimberley in 1957, which I had not seen before. I love the bottle of Dettol on the table.

And in a final bit of Stow news, husband and wife filmmakers Rachel Ward and Bryan Brown have received Screen Australia funding to make a film of Tourmaline, that haunting, prophetic novel in which a Messianic figure appears out of the West Australian desert, promising salvation to the dying fictional town of the title. I must admit my immediate thought as to who should play the enigmatic diviner, Michael Random, was American actor Joaquin Phoenix. But I suppose the role should go to an Australian, and as Random is a young man in the book I suggest the super-talented Kodi Smit-McPhee.

Quote of the week: “No thresher has been more enthusiastic in reducing the cornfield of others’ reputations to size.”

English novelist Anthony Quinn reviewing screenwriter Frederic Raphael’s memoir, Going Up, in The Guardian. Quinn has a thorough thresh himself before he’s through, but it’s one of those hilariously negative reviews that only makes you want to read the book.