I don’t review Australian books because I am a coward and a dunce. It’s as simple as that. To me, reviewing an Australian book feels like stumbling into a Mexican standoff wearing a suicide vest: things are going to get messy, fast, and I’m wearing my nice shirt. As someone who lives in Perth, the only way I could set off a literary feud that’d make future cocktail parties, writers’ festivals or divorce hearings unbearably awkward would be by accidentally running over Tim Winton’s toes in the parking lot of South Fremantle IGA. Still, OzLit, as it is, is a small community, where each ripple is chronically mistaken for a gnarly wave, and everyone has a fear of drowning (here’s me stepping on Winton’s toes anyway, dang!).

For those of us doggy-paddling in this lukewarm kiddy-pool, the big question surrounding the Ross Fitzgerald scandal/controversy/affair is: How could he have gotten away with it? I think you could offer up a slew of cogent, coherent, and comprehensive theories about trends in criticism and publishing and culture in general that skirt around yet artfully avoid the depressingly simple answer squatting at the core of the matter: no one (really) cares.