Book Review - Herald Sun Melbourne
Family humour a bill of rights;
SUSAN BUGG Herald Sun (Melbourne, Australia) 08-20-2005
MAN'S GOT TO HAVE A HOBBY: LONG SUMMERS WITH MY DAD by William McInnes, Hodder, rrp. $32.95
MOST Australians would recognise William McInnes from TV shows such as Blue Heelers, SeaChange, My Brother Jack and most recently a cameo role in Kath & Kim. This talented actor also has a talent for telling stories. In his first book, a fondly written memoir, Footscray resident McInnes returns to his Queensland boyhood and the home he shared with dad Colin, mum Iris and brother and sisters. It's pure '70s: tales of cracker night, making lip-slicing tumblers with a K-Tel glass cutter, jumping the fence at the Redcliffe show, lining up for hotdogs at the local footy, and trips to the drive-in, when Dad would always drive away without disconnecting the speaker.
McInnes' World War II paratrooper dad, as the title suggests, is central. He's a big man, in physique and personality, and the source of the black humour that seems to keep the family humming. Never happy without a project on the go (a man's got to have a hobby), he talks to the telly as if it were human and has an unusual line in put-downs: piecan, tripe hound, banjo player. It's an atmosphere of mutual affection, peppered with lingo rarely understood outside the family circle.
The book is highly visual. There is no trouble imagining the entire family, one by one climbing up on the dining table, first to fix a terminally troublesome fluoro light, but then having a jig while there. This memoir is more than just a string of amusing stories, though. It's a lament for days gone by.
McInnes is at times almost wistful for less complicated times when tennis racquets were made of wood and sarsaparilla was his drink of choice. And it's a recognition that few things remain the same: drive-ins make way for ``more appropriate development'', old friends drift apart and seemingly unassailable old men fall prey to the monster of Alzheimer's disease. For all the long summers with his dad, winter is inevitable.
SUSAN BUGG Herald Sun (Melbourne, Australia) 08-20-2005
MAN'S GOT TO HAVE A HOBBY: LONG SUMMERS WITH MY DAD by William McInnes, Hodder, rrp. $32.95
MOST Australians would recognise William McInnes from TV shows such as Blue Heelers, SeaChange, My Brother Jack and most recently a cameo role in Kath & Kim. This talented actor also has a talent for telling stories. In his first book, a fondly written memoir, Footscray resident McInnes returns to his Queensland boyhood and the home he shared with dad Colin, mum Iris and brother and sisters. It's pure '70s: tales of cracker night, making lip-slicing tumblers with a K-Tel glass cutter, jumping the fence at the Redcliffe show, lining up for hotdogs at the local footy, and trips to the drive-in, when Dad would always drive away without disconnecting the speaker.
McInnes' World War II paratrooper dad, as the title suggests, is central. He's a big man, in physique and personality, and the source of the black humour that seems to keep the family humming. Never happy without a project on the go (a man's got to have a hobby), he talks to the telly as if it were human and has an unusual line in put-downs: piecan, tripe hound, banjo player. It's an atmosphere of mutual affection, peppered with lingo rarely understood outside the family circle.
The book is highly visual. There is no trouble imagining the entire family, one by one climbing up on the dining table, first to fix a terminally troublesome fluoro light, but then having a jig while there. This memoir is more than just a string of amusing stories, though. It's a lament for days gone by.
McInnes is at times almost wistful for less complicated times when tennis racquets were made of wood and sarsaparilla was his drink of choice. And it's a recognition that few things remain the same: drive-ins make way for ``more appropriate development'', old friends drift apart and seemingly unassailable old men fall prey to the monster of Alzheimer's disease. For all the long summers with his dad, winter is inevitable.
posted by WilliamWatch at 2:34 PM
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