Chameleon: A memoir of art, travel, ideas and love

by Robert Dessaix

Robert Dessaix’s Chameleon is about everything that matters, a book of memories that flow so freely they seem to happen as we read. Cartwheeling from story to story, Dessaix describes an identity in his beginnings as an adopted child named Thomas Robert Jones, his youthful interest in religious thinking, his obsession with all things Russian, his marriage to Lisa and divorce, his discovery of travel. In North Africa he finds different ways of feeling and being, and in Australia he begins his abiding relationship with his partner Peter Timms. At every point he muses on pleasure, art, sex, literature, infatuation, happiness, music, life, death and all the rest. Chameleon is a virtuoso performance of self-revelation, as Dessaix explores how the restless mind takes constant detours to search for what makes life good, a place of wisdom and love.

Robert Dessaix is a writer, translator and broadcaster whose best-known books are the autobiography A Mother’s Disgrace, the novels Night Letters and Corfu, and the travel memoirs Twilight of Love and Arabesques. From 1985 to 1995 he presented the weekly ‘Books and Writing’ program on ABC Radio National. His books have been published in a number of languages. His most recent publications are his memoirs What Days Are For (a meditation on what makes for a good life in the face of death) and The Time of Our Lives (which focuses on ageing well), along with Abracadabra, a collection of his recent writings. He lives in Hobart, Tasmania.

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography Memoir, Memoir

265 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 4, 2025

Reviews

[Suz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Having never crossed paths with this author, I found this to be an interesting and unexpected story of one man’s life in all forms. Robert Dessaix flows from one thought to another, covering all aspects of his life, nothing is off limits. Love, obsession, desire. What makes the heart really BEAT. That which matters to him and all parts of his memory and desire. Strangely, reading a paragraph including the suburb of Merrylands, very close to where I live, I couldn’t have been more surprised! I think having known more about the man, I would definitely have been more switched on, but in saying that the descriptive prose and quality writing made for an eye opening read.

With my thanks to the publisher for my copy to read and review. My reviews are a little slow to appear!

[Sue Gould · Rating 2 out of 5]

I struggled to finish this memoir. Almost stream of consciousness, a meandering recollection of people and events and places and feelings. People (many people) appeared and disappeared with little explanation and rarely any backstory or context. Some lovely sections, but insufficiently structured and coherent for my enjoyment.

[Text Publishing]

The following book reviews have been shared by Text Publishing, publisher of Chameleon:

‘Discursive and prismatic, wise and worldly...Passionate and infectious, it crackles with acuity and well-earned insight, bursting with references from Prokofiev to George Michael, from Konstantin Paustovsky to Ryan Gosling. Throughout, we sense Dessaix over our shoulder with the wink and the nudge, sly and sardonic. It’s a game, but an endlessly entertaining one, like a chess match with one’s wittiest uncle, the one you can’t imagine living without.’
Australian Book Review

‘Wise, witty, and sumptuously idiosyncratic, Robert Dessaix is a writer for all season.’
Andrea Goldsmith, author of The Buried Life

‘In this flinty yet fond conversation with his long-ago self, Robert Dessaix explores the myriad contradictions that make us fully human. His words, and his singular wisdom, shimmer.’
Ailsa Piper, author of For Life

‘Sweet Jesus, this is beautiful.’
David Marr, author of Killing for Country

‘Sophisticated and funny, Chameleon is a rich and entertaining education on a man’s life; a detailed map of the literature, ideas and places that shaped him.’
The Guardian

‘A dazzlingly beautiful reading experience.’
The Guardian

‘Carefully crafted and moving.’
The Age

‘Reading this offering is a crash course on his style, his wit and his being…A delightful, meandering cavort from childhood till now…I gobbled this unique read all up. I basked in his humour, intellect, and sensitivity.’
Chris Gordon, Readings Monthly

‘Dessaix writes with beauty, wit and infectious energy…Chameleon is an education on the role travel and literature can have in shaping our identities and imaginations.’
The Guardian

‘Inspiring…I cannot recommend it too highly. It is, without doubt “a must read.”’
Good Reading

‘Rather than trying to make sense of a life as a coherent series of events, Chameleon conveys the complex formation of a human voice, a literary voice. As readers, we have the pleasure of engaging with that voice, while learning to consider the nature of our own...Dessaix’s is a life resolved in language.’
The Conversation

‘[Dessaix] is the perfect performer, just as he is a skilled and pleasurable writer to read. His authorial voice charms—and disarms’
NZ Listener

[Hillcloptushome.com.au · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have read most of Robert Dessaix’s books. So I looked forward to this latest offering. However, I found this tone to be so self indulgent and rambling. I really struggled to read past the first 60 pages. There were so many authors, artists and people dropped into the story line for little apparent reason, I really lost interest. The sections on his marriage, childhood, his partner’s teaching experience and the final chapters were highlights for me. I love his quote on “making your unknown known is the important thing-and keeping the unknown always beyond you p..259”. This I feel is a real theme of the book and nicely ties up themes within this book.

[Jenny Esots · Rating 4 out of 5]

A swirling memoir of the kind Robert Dessaix has made his forte.
Recollections and memories, loves and quandaries.
Dessaix tackles love, loss, sex, obsession and unrequited love.
Dessaix spends quite a bit of the book musing on unrequited love (the only love that lasts - a quip by Woody Allen - that riffs into his take on Woody). Especially in his childhood and early years.
We go back to our childhood the more we age (the reminiscence bump).
We don't have the time or inclination before our later years to concern ourselves with childhood - which as Dessaix points out, we can't escape.
By the way, in the book Dessaix refers to himself by his childhood name of Thomas Robert - he later took his mother's maiden name as his surname: Dessaix.
Dessiax is a totally distracted writer who veers all over the place, using a conversational style (lots of asides). Never the less one his entranced by his eye for the world around him.
His attempts at self assessment are like most peoples, evasive.
He writes about his time with his wife as a blur.
Like he has closed that chapter and can't go there. After spending the beginning chapters talking about having two selves and his very gay outlook it is never clear how he ended up with a wife.
It was the expectation of the times to marry, but he was far from a person who took the expected pathway.
His early travels in Morocco are exotic and he relates an experience he writes off as pure coincidence (meeting the uncle of his friend outside the airport by pure chance, as before this he was totally lost).
The author reminds me of Fran Leibovitz who has made a career out of her recollections and life.
This is where Dessaix's strengths lie. He talks of many things, but as he relates 'I have never wanted to tell stories, either, yet I want to write. All I have got is an ear. (page 255)
Perhaps his motivation is clearer here: 'Do my readers believe the words I type? Do they long to? That's one of my ambitions - to have readers who do, who don't just read but are what I write. I have no ambition to teach anyone anything, I am not a journalist, I am not a teacher (as you were), I do not want pupils, I want readers who are my words.' (page 252)

[Robert Watson · Rating 5 out of 5]

On rare occasions one reads a book that is exactly what one needs at a particular time. This memoir ( Dessaix himself somewhat reluctantly agrees this is the best title for what he writes) is full of wisdom. Wisdom gained in his search to be the person he wanted to be rather than the person he is( or was). He writes this piece to his younger self, Thomas Robert, and in doing so creates a genuine and honest portrait of existential angst. We hear of his struggles with religion and married life, his love of language, art and music, and his acceptance of death. His essay on the grief of euthanising his beloved dog previously published in The Guardian is powerful and a starting point for a more expansive section on mortality in general.
The references he makes to works of art, music and literature have me wanting to see, listen or read them. Pierre Bonnard, Prokofiev and the Barbie movie to name a few. I do remember loving his first work, A Mother’s Disgrace, and although I probably should read it again to be certain, this work is more substantial and more elegant.

[Philip Hunt · Rating 2 out of 5]

Goodreads asks me, "What did you think?" and usually I am quick to write a reply, but Robert Dessaix has left me thinking I couldn't get on his wavelength. My bad? Perhaps.

There's a lot to like about how Robert goes about writing a memoir. For example, engaging in a conversation with himself as a boy, and with a friend (not to be confused with "a mate"). I found interest in how he has gone about the tricky business of writing a memoir.

However (you knew that was coming, right?) Robert and I think quite differently about, well, pretty much everything. At first, I thought this would be instructive. Even revelatory. But no. The necessary resonances didn't happen. No one's fault. Not a waste of my time. Just rather disappointing. Expected something other.

[Margaret · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have liked all of this author’s writing exactly because it is about nothing really but he does it so well. This one I found a little too self indulgent but it was mainly the bits about the friend Niall that irritated me and made me want to toss it.

[Angella · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. Dessaix's voice is mesmerising as an audio narrator. I enjoyed some chapters and would read more of his work.