In the summer of 1991 I was ten, and my father had bought a copy of American Psycho by Brett Easton Ellis. He sat one Saturday afternoon in the living room in his armchair, reading it. I remember this vividly for two reasons: one was that I was both fascinated and terrified by the cover art, which depicted what looked like a man wearing a mask made of flesh; and the second was a typically understated warning from my father, who looked dourly at me over his glasses and the top of the book at once, saying, ‘You can never, […]

‘Here I am, your Honour,’ I’d plead. ‘I’ve read everything from Ernest Hemingway and Ralph Ellison to Bret Easton Ellis—and not only do I lead a fictional existence which would do justice to the above authors, I still can’t get courteous counter service at the Niagara Cafe in downtown Bega!’
Barry Cooper in Meanjin 2006.

When I was thirteen years old I wanted to be Warwick Capper. You see, Warwick Capper had long blond hair, white boots, and took spectacular marks. He played like a bird, fragile on the ground but always dexterous in flight. When I was eleven, even twelve, I didn’t really know who Warwick Capper was, in fact I didn’t know what a mark was nor did I understand Aussie Rules, which at the time made little sense to me or my parents, as we had just emigrated to Australia. But I learnt quickly. ‘Dad, what are the sticks?’ ‘Son, goals.’ ‘Dad, […]

‘Ah BuKien wants to discuss Aghere for her son,’ my mother announced to my father over breakfast one morning. They spoke as if I wasn’t there, but they expected me to eavesdrop. This woman, a family friend of my parents, had been intent on seeing me marry her son ever since she had lain eyes on me as a shapeless pre-pubescent in my mother’s hand-me-downs. My father laughed. Ha, the absurdity of it. He thought I was too good for Ah BuKien’s son. ‘That crazy antiquated relic thinks she’s still living in Confucian times,’ my father sneered. ‘She doesn’t realise […]

When I was little I was always very interested in big women who shamelessly mentioned their knickers in front of my father. These women sometimes sang fragments of music, often quite difficult passages in which there might be two violins, a cello, a trumpet and a drum roll, for my mother to identify for them. My mother never made a mistake as she listened to the extraordinary noises which emerged from the massed instruments inside their heads. ‘Ah! Beethoven of course!’ The visitors were very grateful, ‘that tune’s been on my brain all week.’ My father always looked across to […]

It’s extraordinary to look back, over all those years. I remember, as a child, looking forward to a stretch of time that seemed endless, a point that, as I gazed at the nearest elderly relative, was beyond her comprehension, or possibility of attainment. Well, I’m there now, or almost, and this exercise in recollection, albeit purely in the professional areas, will be interesting and, given my current feelings (disappointments, still lingering hopes?), quite salutary. I remember, vividly, the first moment, entering what was then the St James Hall. Later it became the Mercury Theatre and, finally, its greatest glory, the […]

Dear Editor, I am sitting in P’s study, at the solid commodious desk which you know so well; it has a glass top under which he has stuck picture postcards from all over Europe. It is Friday, 23 August, night is falling: the fourth night after the invasion. I have spent the day, as I spent the others since the Russians came here, walking the streets of Prague and talking to friends in this most beautiful of old cities. Several times I have crossed Charles Bridge where we stood with you and Nina—how long ago was it, only about a […]

My freedom from certain fears does not include tolerance of snakes. From infancy my elders implanted in me: their own fear of these reptiles and it took root and grew to an unconquerable revulsion. Even pictured snakes horrify me; the presence of one where I could not escape it would surely reduce me to a paralyzed jelly in terror. Today in areas where snakes are not known the slightest rustle in grass or underbrush will cause me involuntarily to spring away from it. ‘Dear me, what a state your nerves must be in!’ someone will remark, but it is merely […]

When I returned to London, in 1910, it was with a little more assurance than I had felt a few years earlier. Then I had been intensely conscious of my youth, my lack of experience, my incapacity for anything but a kind of literary beachcombing, gathering fragments for obscure publishers — The Proverbs of Japan, The Proverbs of China, The Potted Policy of Parnell. Through a chance meeting with Lionel Lindsay in Sydney I had been admitted to an attic near the British Museum that had once sheltered him and had still one of his abandoned self-portraits on the wall. […]