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Our Man Elsewhere: In Search of Alan Moorehead
A world-famous Australian writer, an inspiration to Robert Hughes and Clive James, a legendary war correspondent who also wrote bestselling histories of exploration and conservation . . . and yet forgotten? In this dazzling book, Thornton McCamish delves into the past to reclaim a remarkable figure, Alan Moorehead.
As a reporter, Moorehead witnessed many of the great historical events of the mid-20th the Spanish Civil War and both world wars, Cold War espionage, and decolonisation in Africa. He debated strategy with Churchill and Gandhi, fished with Hemingway, and drank with Graham Greene, Ava Gardner and Truman Capote. As well as being a regular contributor to the New Yorker, in 1956 Moorehead wrote the first significant book about the Gallipoli campaign.
With its countless adventures, its touch of jet-set glamour and its tragic arc, Moorehead's story is a beguiling one. Thornton McCamish tells it as a quest - intimate, perceptive and superbly entertaining. His funny, ardent book reveals an extraordinary Australian and takes its place in a fresh tradition of contemporary biography.
Longlisted, 2016 Walkley Book Award
'[McCamish] succeeds Our Man Elsewhere is crammed with anecdote and shrewd observation, with the kind of detail and ruminative digression that conventional biographers might consider trivial or irrelevant ... [it] is such a good book that I'm hard put to find anything wrong with it.' -Inside Story
'McCamish's triumph is to apply Moorehead's own relentless curiosity to his subject, and add a modern prism to the man and his work. McCamish's writing is elegant, frosted in fresh insights ... marvellous.' -Herald Sun
'A detailed, involving and very readable look at the life of a flawed man with a large appetite for life.' -Books+Publishing
'This is one of those rare biographies that will keep you transfixed right to the very last pages, even though in this instance, they are scorchingly sad.' -Country Style
'Full-hearted, free-striding - this is a book that sings.' -Helen Garner
Thornton McCamish is a freelance journalist and writer. He was editor of the Big Issue (Australia) magazine from 1996 to 1999. His book A Journey Among Ports (2002) was published by Lonely Planet. Thornton received a 2013 Merlyn Myer Biography stipend to write Our Man Elsewhere - awarded on the strength of his outstanding proposal.
As a reporter, Moorehead witnessed many of the great historical events of the mid-20th the Spanish Civil War and both world wars, Cold War espionage, and decolonisation in Africa. He debated strategy with Churchill and Gandhi, fished with Hemingway, and drank with Graham Greene, Ava Gardner and Truman Capote. As well as being a regular contributor to the New Yorker, in 1956 Moorehead wrote the first significant book about the Gallipoli campaign.
With its countless adventures, its touch of jet-set glamour and its tragic arc, Moorehead's story is a beguiling one. Thornton McCamish tells it as a quest - intimate, perceptive and superbly entertaining. His funny, ardent book reveals an extraordinary Australian and takes its place in a fresh tradition of contemporary biography.
Longlisted, 2016 Walkley Book Award
'[McCamish] succeeds Our Man Elsewhere is crammed with anecdote and shrewd observation, with the kind of detail and ruminative digression that conventional biographers might consider trivial or irrelevant ... [it] is such a good book that I'm hard put to find anything wrong with it.' -Inside Story
'McCamish's triumph is to apply Moorehead's own relentless curiosity to his subject, and add a modern prism to the man and his work. McCamish's writing is elegant, frosted in fresh insights ... marvellous.' -Herald Sun
'A detailed, involving and very readable look at the life of a flawed man with a large appetite for life.' -Books+Publishing
'This is one of those rare biographies that will keep you transfixed right to the very last pages, even though in this instance, they are scorchingly sad.' -Country Style
'Full-hearted, free-striding - this is a book that sings.' -Helen Garner
Thornton McCamish is a freelance journalist and writer. He was editor of the Big Issue (Australia) magazine from 1996 to 1999. His book A Journey Among Ports (2002) was published by Lonely Planet. Thornton received a 2013 Merlyn Myer Biography stipend to write Our Man Elsewhere - awarded on the strength of his outstanding proposal.
544 pages, Kindle Edition
First published March 28, 2016
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April 21, 2016
*Some spoilers for some readers in the final paragraphs.
"One of Moorehead’s chief themes in these years is an exaggerated horror of being pinned down, of getting stuck, and the absolute necessity of avoiding it, either in a place, or with a woman, or – worse – with a wife and the prams and toddlers and suburban front yard he assumed came with one."
An excerpt in The Monthly from Our Man Elsewhere: In Search of Alan Moorehead by Thornton McCamish so impressed I pre-ordered the book last month and now that I have finished can say it has given great pleasure. Moorehead made a life travelling and writing. He seemed to know everybody and have been everywhere. His flight from the continental confines of Australia inspired the likes of Robert Hughes, Clive James and other would-be expatriates. At one stage, Alan Moorehead was Australia's most famous writer.
This is not a conventional biography. McCamish's book is something special. He clearly is enamoured with Moorehead and communicates the adventure of his 'search' for the war correspondent, traveller, husband, father, womaniser, journalist and writer skilfully. I was hooked. There's just so much to enjoy in the story of Moorehead as well as the author's thought about his subject's legacy and life. I particularly enjoyed reading about the challenge of writing:
Back in Cairo in 1941, Moorehead had devised a method for writing books he’d stuck with ever since. He would sketch out by hand a blueprint of the entire book on sheets of foolscap, indicating roughly the contents of each chapter, including inspired phrases or lines of dialogue, and refine it until all his ideas were in the right place. Once this ‘cartoon for a tapestry’ was complete, it was time for the actual writing. It was a methodical, painfully costive process that demanded a steady, unrelenting input of working time. When a book was on the go, he worked six days a week; he rose before 7 a.m., made himself a huge pot of coffee, and trudged out to the studio. There he sat, back to the tumbling vineyards and shining sea, not leaving his seat until lunchtime. In the afternoons, he corrected the morning’s work, read, or redrafted. The greatest lesson Robert Hughes absorbed at the feet of the master, he said afterwards, was business-like hours. ‘Whether he was writing anything or not, he’d be sitting in front of the typewriter, and generally just by the sheer process of shaming himself into sitting there, 1000 words a day would come out.’ Moorehead remarked in the late ’50s, ‘people sometimes tell me they enjoy writing. I just look at them and wonder how long they’ve been at it.’
Roberto Bolaño says genuine travel "requires travellers who have nothing to lose’" and it is easy to admire Moorehead's ability to travel endlessly; he certainly fits a mould. I have ordered secondhand copies of several of Moorehead's travel books. It will be interesting to see how they have stood the test of time.
To write about Gallipoli, however, Moorehead would have to overcome a lifetime’s distaste for the very word. A boy when the Great War ended, Moorehead had grown up surrounded by its maudlin remembrance, bitterness and human wreckage. Anzac Day was a torment in the 1920s. He hated it all: Kipling’s poetry and the turgid speeches; the ‘bitter, hopeless grief’, the boozy sentimentality and the ‘endless stories about what old Joe did on Hill 60’. It all ‘bored me and bored me and bored me’. Not that you would ever dare say so.
Professional historians never had much time for Moorehead and he was one of the first great popularisers of history to sell well. I had read two of his books previously, about Gallipoli and Darwin, but intend to re-read them when I have a chance. Germaine Greer is quoted as saying Moorehead's book about Gallipoli was the first, and the best-written.
After finishing McCamish's book a secondhand copy of A Late Education arrived (culled from a library in Ottawa). I read it in one sitting, understanding what compelled McCamish to pursue the largely forgotten Australian in library archives, via old friends and in places he lived or worked. Moorehead writes very masterfully and with a voice that seems stripped of ego.
Moorehead's early years in Australia and the period prior to the outbreak of WWII, when he was in Paris, Germany, Gibraltar and Italy for the first time are particularly engaging. The bit about when he met Hemingway is great too. His voice - which has such honesty that he makes Knausgaard look shy - makes for wonderful reading.
Moorehead had terrible health problems at a relatively early age (although he seemed to outlive all his WWII contemporaries). Tobacco, alcohol and stress must have had much to do with his stroke. This seems so terribly terrible. And lonely. I find it deeply melancholic thinking the horror of those dozen years or so when Moorehead was unable to read or write or talk much at all.
Lucy, his wife (and after all his infidelities) was the one who constructed A Late Education from her husband's notes while he was incapacitated. The book is unbalanced but nevertheless the best that could be hoped for with Moorehead in such bad shape. It was a terrible blow to this reader when his wife was killed and it seemed all the more terrible to think about again after reading her efforts to compile this book. Really terrible.
He died in 1983. His wife had been killed in a car accident in 1979. Buried in London, at Hampstead, his epitaph is brief and wholly appropriate:
Alan Moorehead: Writer
"One of Moorehead’s chief themes in these years is an exaggerated horror of being pinned down, of getting stuck, and the absolute necessity of avoiding it, either in a place, or with a woman, or – worse – with a wife and the prams and toddlers and suburban front yard he assumed came with one."
An excerpt in The Monthly from Our Man Elsewhere: In Search of Alan Moorehead by Thornton McCamish so impressed I pre-ordered the book last month and now that I have finished can say it has given great pleasure. Moorehead made a life travelling and writing. He seemed to know everybody and have been everywhere. His flight from the continental confines of Australia inspired the likes of Robert Hughes, Clive James and other would-be expatriates. At one stage, Alan Moorehead was Australia's most famous writer.
This is not a conventional biography. McCamish's book is something special. He clearly is enamoured with Moorehead and communicates the adventure of his 'search' for the war correspondent, traveller, husband, father, womaniser, journalist and writer skilfully. I was hooked. There's just so much to enjoy in the story of Moorehead as well as the author's thought about his subject's legacy and life. I particularly enjoyed reading about the challenge of writing:
Back in Cairo in 1941, Moorehead had devised a method for writing books he’d stuck with ever since. He would sketch out by hand a blueprint of the entire book on sheets of foolscap, indicating roughly the contents of each chapter, including inspired phrases or lines of dialogue, and refine it until all his ideas were in the right place. Once this ‘cartoon for a tapestry’ was complete, it was time for the actual writing. It was a methodical, painfully costive process that demanded a steady, unrelenting input of working time. When a book was on the go, he worked six days a week; he rose before 7 a.m., made himself a huge pot of coffee, and trudged out to the studio. There he sat, back to the tumbling vineyards and shining sea, not leaving his seat until lunchtime. In the afternoons, he corrected the morning’s work, read, or redrafted. The greatest lesson Robert Hughes absorbed at the feet of the master, he said afterwards, was business-like hours. ‘Whether he was writing anything or not, he’d be sitting in front of the typewriter, and generally just by the sheer process of shaming himself into sitting there, 1000 words a day would come out.’ Moorehead remarked in the late ’50s, ‘people sometimes tell me they enjoy writing. I just look at them and wonder how long they’ve been at it.’
Roberto Bolaño says genuine travel "requires travellers who have nothing to lose’" and it is easy to admire Moorehead's ability to travel endlessly; he certainly fits a mould. I have ordered secondhand copies of several of Moorehead's travel books. It will be interesting to see how they have stood the test of time.
To write about Gallipoli, however, Moorehead would have to overcome a lifetime’s distaste for the very word. A boy when the Great War ended, Moorehead had grown up surrounded by its maudlin remembrance, bitterness and human wreckage. Anzac Day was a torment in the 1920s. He hated it all: Kipling’s poetry and the turgid speeches; the ‘bitter, hopeless grief’, the boozy sentimentality and the ‘endless stories about what old Joe did on Hill 60’. It all ‘bored me and bored me and bored me’. Not that you would ever dare say so.
Professional historians never had much time for Moorehead and he was one of the first great popularisers of history to sell well. I had read two of his books previously, about Gallipoli and Darwin, but intend to re-read them when I have a chance. Germaine Greer is quoted as saying Moorehead's book about Gallipoli was the first, and the best-written.
After finishing McCamish's book a secondhand copy of A Late Education arrived (culled from a library in Ottawa). I read it in one sitting, understanding what compelled McCamish to pursue the largely forgotten Australian in library archives, via old friends and in places he lived or worked. Moorehead writes very masterfully and with a voice that seems stripped of ego.
Moorehead's early years in Australia and the period prior to the outbreak of WWII, when he was in Paris, Germany, Gibraltar and Italy for the first time are particularly engaging. The bit about when he met Hemingway is great too. His voice - which has such honesty that he makes Knausgaard look shy - makes for wonderful reading.
Moorehead had terrible health problems at a relatively early age (although he seemed to outlive all his WWII contemporaries). Tobacco, alcohol and stress must have had much to do with his stroke. This seems so terribly terrible. And lonely. I find it deeply melancholic thinking the horror of those dozen years or so when Moorehead was unable to read or write or talk much at all.
Lucy, his wife (and after all his infidelities) was the one who constructed A Late Education from her husband's notes while he was incapacitated. The book is unbalanced but nevertheless the best that could be hoped for with Moorehead in such bad shape. It was a terrible blow to this reader when his wife was killed and it seemed all the more terrible to think about again after reading her efforts to compile this book. Really terrible.
He died in 1983. His wife had been killed in a car accident in 1979. Buried in London, at Hampstead, his epitaph is brief and wholly appropriate:
Alan Moorehead: Writer
May 11, 2016
It's hard to pick out just what's most interesting about this book; of a writer who's out of fashion now, and a personality that doesn't come across as all that likeable.
Perhaps it's the era: the young Australian writer off to Europe for adventure and finding himself at a place on the brink of war, and with a key role in describing that war. And the post-war, reconstruction Europe, a fishing village in Italy, early tourism trails in Africa.
But it's also the personality of the biographer writing about Moorehead: somewhat obsessed, hunting down the haunts and environs of his subject, all the time a little worried whether Moorehead and his writing is worth the search.
Somehow, it works, and there's a certain pathos at the end for a man who has faded from Australian literary life, that found me, a week or so ago, browsing the long shelves of a second-hand bookshop on, looking in vain for a copy of 'Cooper's Creek' or 'The White Nile' or any book by Alan Moorehead, a name I remember often seeing lined up proudly on shelves as a child. Literature, like history, moves on.
Perhaps it's the era: the young Australian writer off to Europe for adventure and finding himself at a place on the brink of war, and with a key role in describing that war. And the post-war, reconstruction Europe, a fishing village in Italy, early tourism trails in Africa.
But it's also the personality of the biographer writing about Moorehead: somewhat obsessed, hunting down the haunts and environs of his subject, all the time a little worried whether Moorehead and his writing is worth the search.
Somehow, it works, and there's a certain pathos at the end for a man who has faded from Australian literary life, that found me, a week or so ago, browsing the long shelves of a second-hand bookshop on, looking in vain for a copy of 'Cooper's Creek' or 'The White Nile' or any book by Alan Moorehead, a name I remember often seeing lined up proudly on shelves as a child. Literature, like history, moves on.
June 21, 2016
In the acknowledgements at the end of this book, Thornton McCamish calls his effort a "sort-of biography", which I guess is true, but sells this well-written and entertaining book short. Part detective story, part hagiography, part travel diary, this book about one of Australia's most well-known post-war writers begins by trying to understand a mystery, a mystery that has also intrigued me a little over the years, and a mystery that drove McCamish to great lengths.
Alan Moorehead, at the peak of his powers in the early 1960s, was one of the best-known writers in the English-speaking world, mentioned in the same breath as Hemingway (they were friends, of a sort), and whose latest tome was eagerly awaited by both publishers and readers alike. His version of history as travel, with a bit of himself thrown in, had no equivalent in his own time, and few equals since, and there have been many who have tried to capture the essence of his writing in their own, and failed.
The mystery that McCamish outlines at the beginning of Our man elsewhere is how someone like Moorehead could - half a lifetime after he stopped writing - now incite a response of "Alan who?" if mentioned in conversation, particularly in his home country of Australia (McCamish too is Antipodean).
Like McCamish, I have a deep affection for Moorehead's work. Unlike McCamish, I came to him first through his later books such as The White Nile and Cooper's Creek. McCamish first came across his war writing in the African Trilogy and was instantly swept up by the power of his prose, and the seemingly effortless way he transferred experience to paper. This began a multi-year process of trying to track Moorehead down in archives and on the ground. It seems that at some stages this activity became almost an obsession for McCamish, rather than merely research for a book.
As McCamish gets further into his subject, the reader travels with him across Europe, experiencing his personal reaction to the various revelations he has while walking in the footsteps of his hero. We learn that Moorehead was desperate to leave Australia, and when he did in the mid 30s, his luck landed him on the doorstep of the opening salvos of World War Two.
McCamish, even though he clearly has great respect for his subject, is not averse to describing his less-than-perfect traits, one of which was his pushiness. This characteristic - much unloved by the Englishmen around him - enabled Moorehead to get on the ground in Egypt to witness the Western Desert fighting. When he arrived there he was a working journalist, unknown outside his newspaper, and one of many war correspondents assigned to the theatre. By the time the campaign ended with Allied victory, his byline alone was selling papers, and his successful war books were being put through the presses.
While he was covering the war, he was also having a good time. McCamish conveys the almost University College-like feeling of men being together all for a common purpose, with the danger and discomfort adding to the cameraderie. For Moorehead, it was also like the University education he never received, spending much time drinking and arguing with his contemporary English correspondents, and learning much about the world, literature and history.
At the end of the war, Moorehead was determined to make his mark as a writer, but floundered for the next decade, producing several poor novels (McCamish, ever ready to praise Moorehead's writing, can find little good to say about these efforts - I'm glad he read them so I don't have to), and surviving on articles for magazines such as the New Yorker and others.
He gradually came to realise that his forte as a writer was non-fiction, and over the period from his highly praised book about the Gallipoli campaign to the release of The White Nile he found his true metier - narrative history with an "I was there" feel. His ability to describe places, imagine a place in time and to sketch character, all developed in the crucible of war, were now put to good use, and both The White Nile and The Blue Nile were bestsellers.
As well as these successful books, Moorehead continued to write articles for magazines, and tried (and failed) to get into writing for films. He travelled constantly, but his home base was a house he built in Porto Ercole in Tuscany, and on his brief soujourns there he hosted a constant stream of writers, actors and other members of high society who came and spent time with him. It was a good life.
Writing the book about Gallipoli brought Moorehead back to Australia: when he left in the 30s, he cast aside his home country, to the extent that he even changed his accent. In the early 50s he returned for a short period to write a book aimed at the overseas market (Rum Jungle), which did little to endear him to the Australian literary scene, as it was then. After he finished the Nile books, he was searching around for a new subject, and his friend Sidney Nolan (Moorehead was on friendly terms with many artists) suggested the Burke and Wills story as suitable. The result was not only Cooper's Creek (still the best treatment of the Burke and Wills expedition), but a realisation by Moorhead that his home country did have a lot to offer a writer. True, it had no long human history in the European sense (which is why he left in the first place) but it was a country that was still in the process of creating its (white) mythic stories, and those stories contained much that was of interest to a writer.
This homecoming for Moorehead was therefore a physical and a psychic one, and he was finding his endless wanderlust was passing (his other desires however were another story; an inveterate womaniser, McCamish deals with Moorehead's numerous affairs and flings with honesty and tact).
Then tragedy struck - the stroke he suffered at the end of 1966 stopped his writing for the rest of his life, and meant that his final 15 years were one of limited horizons: he couldn't really communicate much verbally, was essentially unable to read and could not write (he could however, paint, with his left hand). The fact that he published two further books is down to his wife Lucy, who managed to gather together and edit material that emerged as Darwin and the Beagle and A late education. Lucy comes through in this book as an equal partner in the Moorehead "business" - since the war she had been essential in his output - typing, editing, dealing with publishers and making sure business was finished, as Alan was travelling and writing.
All of this is related by McCamish in an easy-to-read way; interspersing his own story of tracking down his hero and revisiting places Moorehead stayed or visited and comparing the now to the then. Once into the book the reader realises that what McCamish is doing is writing a Moorehead book: a narrative history with a present-day "I" at the centre. It is a touching tribute to Moorehead, and a successful one too - many books of this type fail because the "I" becomes too intrusive, but invariably in Our man elsewhere McCamish's appearances add to, rather than detract from, the story.
The quibbles I had with the book were few - a couple of editorial mistakes (Frank Clune, not Cluny, and I couldn't find the article in Horizon magazine that was mentioned) and a very occasional slip in McCamish's evocation of the past (in Melbourne in the early 60s they would be drinking Claret and listening to the wireless, not Fruity Lexia with a radio). McCamish has a wonderful way of expressing what it's like to research thoroughly for a book; I loved how he hated to see the name Morshead in the index of books because it meant there was no mention of his pet subject (resonating with me because I'm often looking for Morshead and am annoyed at Moorehead appearing!).
McCamish also had problems with Moorehead's view on topics such as native Africans and Australian Aboriginals, wondering why Moorehead wasn't more progressive, but he was certainly a man of his time, and a man of Empire toboot, so it would seem to me that his views were of a piece with that. Where Moorehead was ahead of his time was in his views on conservation, with No room in the Ark and The fatal impact years ahead of their time in their description of man's impact on other life. It would have been interesting to see how Moorehead's writing developed in that area if he hadn't had his stroke.
As with all good biographies of writers, Our man elsewhere reminded me of what I should revisit, told me things I didn't know (i..e. that he didn't die until 1983!), and has driven me to some of Moorehead's work that I hadn't read. By the end of the book, as McCamish revisits the Moorehead archive at the National Library of Australia for one last time, he himself seems to reach the end of his obsession, and can comfortably close the cover on what is an interesting biography of an interesting man.
Highly recommended.
Check out my other reviews at http://aviewoverthebell.blogspot.com.au/
Alan Moorehead, at the peak of his powers in the early 1960s, was one of the best-known writers in the English-speaking world, mentioned in the same breath as Hemingway (they were friends, of a sort), and whose latest tome was eagerly awaited by both publishers and readers alike. His version of history as travel, with a bit of himself thrown in, had no equivalent in his own time, and few equals since, and there have been many who have tried to capture the essence of his writing in their own, and failed.
The mystery that McCamish outlines at the beginning of Our man elsewhere is how someone like Moorehead could - half a lifetime after he stopped writing - now incite a response of "Alan who?" if mentioned in conversation, particularly in his home country of Australia (McCamish too is Antipodean).
Like McCamish, I have a deep affection for Moorehead's work. Unlike McCamish, I came to him first through his later books such as The White Nile and Cooper's Creek. McCamish first came across his war writing in the African Trilogy and was instantly swept up by the power of his prose, and the seemingly effortless way he transferred experience to paper. This began a multi-year process of trying to track Moorehead down in archives and on the ground. It seems that at some stages this activity became almost an obsession for McCamish, rather than merely research for a book.
As McCamish gets further into his subject, the reader travels with him across Europe, experiencing his personal reaction to the various revelations he has while walking in the footsteps of his hero. We learn that Moorehead was desperate to leave Australia, and when he did in the mid 30s, his luck landed him on the doorstep of the opening salvos of World War Two.
McCamish, even though he clearly has great respect for his subject, is not averse to describing his less-than-perfect traits, one of which was his pushiness. This characteristic - much unloved by the Englishmen around him - enabled Moorehead to get on the ground in Egypt to witness the Western Desert fighting. When he arrived there he was a working journalist, unknown outside his newspaper, and one of many war correspondents assigned to the theatre. By the time the campaign ended with Allied victory, his byline alone was selling papers, and his successful war books were being put through the presses.
While he was covering the war, he was also having a good time. McCamish conveys the almost University College-like feeling of men being together all for a common purpose, with the danger and discomfort adding to the cameraderie. For Moorehead, it was also like the University education he never received, spending much time drinking and arguing with his contemporary English correspondents, and learning much about the world, literature and history.
At the end of the war, Moorehead was determined to make his mark as a writer, but floundered for the next decade, producing several poor novels (McCamish, ever ready to praise Moorehead's writing, can find little good to say about these efforts - I'm glad he read them so I don't have to), and surviving on articles for magazines such as the New Yorker and others.
He gradually came to realise that his forte as a writer was non-fiction, and over the period from his highly praised book about the Gallipoli campaign to the release of The White Nile he found his true metier - narrative history with an "I was there" feel. His ability to describe places, imagine a place in time and to sketch character, all developed in the crucible of war, were now put to good use, and both The White Nile and The Blue Nile were bestsellers.
As well as these successful books, Moorehead continued to write articles for magazines, and tried (and failed) to get into writing for films. He travelled constantly, but his home base was a house he built in Porto Ercole in Tuscany, and on his brief soujourns there he hosted a constant stream of writers, actors and other members of high society who came and spent time with him. It was a good life.
Writing the book about Gallipoli brought Moorehead back to Australia: when he left in the 30s, he cast aside his home country, to the extent that he even changed his accent. In the early 50s he returned for a short period to write a book aimed at the overseas market (Rum Jungle), which did little to endear him to the Australian literary scene, as it was then. After he finished the Nile books, he was searching around for a new subject, and his friend Sidney Nolan (Moorehead was on friendly terms with many artists) suggested the Burke and Wills story as suitable. The result was not only Cooper's Creek (still the best treatment of the Burke and Wills expedition), but a realisation by Moorhead that his home country did have a lot to offer a writer. True, it had no long human history in the European sense (which is why he left in the first place) but it was a country that was still in the process of creating its (white) mythic stories, and those stories contained much that was of interest to a writer.
This homecoming for Moorehead was therefore a physical and a psychic one, and he was finding his endless wanderlust was passing (his other desires however were another story; an inveterate womaniser, McCamish deals with Moorehead's numerous affairs and flings with honesty and tact).
Then tragedy struck - the stroke he suffered at the end of 1966 stopped his writing for the rest of his life, and meant that his final 15 years were one of limited horizons: he couldn't really communicate much verbally, was essentially unable to read and could not write (he could however, paint, with his left hand). The fact that he published two further books is down to his wife Lucy, who managed to gather together and edit material that emerged as Darwin and the Beagle and A late education. Lucy comes through in this book as an equal partner in the Moorehead "business" - since the war she had been essential in his output - typing, editing, dealing with publishers and making sure business was finished, as Alan was travelling and writing.
All of this is related by McCamish in an easy-to-read way; interspersing his own story of tracking down his hero and revisiting places Moorehead stayed or visited and comparing the now to the then. Once into the book the reader realises that what McCamish is doing is writing a Moorehead book: a narrative history with a present-day "I" at the centre. It is a touching tribute to Moorehead, and a successful one too - many books of this type fail because the "I" becomes too intrusive, but invariably in Our man elsewhere McCamish's appearances add to, rather than detract from, the story.
The quibbles I had with the book were few - a couple of editorial mistakes (Frank Clune, not Cluny, and I couldn't find the article in Horizon magazine that was mentioned) and a very occasional slip in McCamish's evocation of the past (in Melbourne in the early 60s they would be drinking Claret and listening to the wireless, not Fruity Lexia with a radio). McCamish has a wonderful way of expressing what it's like to research thoroughly for a book; I loved how he hated to see the name Morshead in the index of books because it meant there was no mention of his pet subject (resonating with me because I'm often looking for Morshead and am annoyed at Moorehead appearing!).
McCamish also had problems with Moorehead's view on topics such as native Africans and Australian Aboriginals, wondering why Moorehead wasn't more progressive, but he was certainly a man of his time, and a man of Empire toboot, so it would seem to me that his views were of a piece with that. Where Moorehead was ahead of his time was in his views on conservation, with No room in the Ark and The fatal impact years ahead of their time in their description of man's impact on other life. It would have been interesting to see how Moorehead's writing developed in that area if he hadn't had his stroke.
As with all good biographies of writers, Our man elsewhere reminded me of what I should revisit, told me things I didn't know (i..e. that he didn't die until 1983!), and has driven me to some of Moorehead's work that I hadn't read. By the end of the book, as McCamish revisits the Moorehead archive at the National Library of Australia for one last time, he himself seems to reach the end of his obsession, and can comfortably close the cover on what is an interesting biography of an interesting man.
Highly recommended.
Check out my other reviews at http://aviewoverthebell.blogspot.com.au/
February 25, 2024
Essentially Alan Moorehead is a young Australian writer off to Europe for adventure and ending up at a place on the brink of war. Alan’s job is to describe and write about the war. I was seriously impressed with all of the famous events he was a part of and the people he met along the way. Like the guy sat next to Vivian Leigh on a plane. The name dropping was seriously impressive.
I received this book as a part of a secret Santa gift and I must admit that I had never heard of Alan. Should I have known who Alan is? Yep. The guy did some seriously impressive stuff. But as this book isn’t exactly a conventional biography, I found it difficult to get into. Plus the author came across as slightly obsessed with Alan… but you do need that dedication to write a biography.
The writing is easy to read with the story of Alan intertwined with the author’s adventures to hunt down the truth of Alan’s life. While I struggled to finish this book, it may have helped if I knew more about Alan. He definitely is a name every Australian should know.
I received this book as a part of a secret Santa gift and I must admit that I had never heard of Alan. Should I have known who Alan is? Yep. The guy did some seriously impressive stuff. But as this book isn’t exactly a conventional biography, I found it difficult to get into. Plus the author came across as slightly obsessed with Alan… but you do need that dedication to write a biography.
The writing is easy to read with the story of Alan intertwined with the author’s adventures to hunt down the truth of Alan’s life. While I struggled to finish this book, it may have helped if I knew more about Alan. He definitely is a name every Australian should know.
August 10, 2018
The author, Thornton McCamish, is present in this book, right from the opening pages. In the places where Moorehead’s career seems to bog down, as it did for years, it is McCamish’s enthusiasm and faith in Moorehead that draws you along as a reader. It’s an honest literary biography that admits that not all writing is spun gold. I don’t think that you need to have read any of Moorehead’s work to enjoy this book. McCamish gives you enough of the flavour of Moorehead’s writing for you to see what he is so excited about.
See my complete review at:
https://residentjudge.wordpress.com/2...
See my complete review at:
https://residentjudge.wordpress.com/2...
December 19, 2025
This is an amateurly written book, with a false style trying to mimic how a better writer might construct their prose. He might be interested in his subject, but I’m guessing he was also enjoying his Merlyn Myer Biography stipend to take advantage of his overseas travel and other perks. And Helen Garner must have owed someone a favour to have put that blurb on the cover. She may have felt sorry for the author in some way. I don’t know, but I guess her actual blurb could sound impressive but on examination could also come across as quite superficial.
I laughed out loud at the hackneyed, excruciating prose at times. Accompanied by sighs and growls. Even the occasional smooth prose could not make up for the pain. Maybe the two stars are for Alan Moorehead’s reasonably interesting life.
I hope you enjoyed the perks of your stipend Thornton, but consider what you’ve done to ruin the aesthetics of my reading experience. This sounds harsh but this was horrible reading mostly, and what I find hard to accept is the extreme falsity of the style, combined with the author’s blindness to how obviously amateurish and transparent his approach is .
I think I finish books of this quality partly so I can enjoy the process and catharsis of reviewing.
I laughed out loud at the hackneyed, excruciating prose at times. Accompanied by sighs and growls. Even the occasional smooth prose could not make up for the pain. Maybe the two stars are for Alan Moorehead’s reasonably interesting life.
I hope you enjoyed the perks of your stipend Thornton, but consider what you’ve done to ruin the aesthetics of my reading experience. This sounds harsh but this was horrible reading mostly, and what I find hard to accept is the extreme falsity of the style, combined with the author’s blindness to how obviously amateurish and transparent his approach is .
I think I finish books of this quality partly so I can enjoy the process and catharsis of reviewing.
October 4, 2017
Moorehead was just a name to me before I read this book. Someone i should know about but couldn't recall anything about him. It seems most of the rest of the Australia is in the same position. Thankfully Thornton has given us an accessible book that takes us on the journey with him to discover Moorehead's story. What an amazing story it is - like a Forest Gump of the 30s, 40s and 50s Alan Moorehead is there for the main events. The book brought the man and the times into the light of today with a gentle touch of insightful commentary.
May 20, 2022
A meticulously researched and well written biography of an important Australian war-time journalist and author. Although there is a fair degree of hero-worshipping here, the author does present a complete portrait of a quite complex man. The most fascinating aspect of the biography is the tracing of Moorehead's life from one location to the next, visiting homes he once lived in, walking the same streets, trying to capture the spirit of the man from before the war til his final days. Add half a star.
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August 17, 2020A brilliantly written bio of the man who was a writing inspiration to Clive James and Robert Hughes. One of the very first expat Australian writers to gain acclaim abroad, Alan Moorehead covered many of great events of the middle 20th century. John, The Book Grocer
Purchase this classic here for just $10.00
Purchase this classic here for just $10.00
August 11, 2021
I was given a hardback children's edition of Alan Moorehead's The Fatal Impact for my 10th birthday. It still seemed to me a grownup's book - a sign of society's declining reading standards, or perhaps just my own. I loved it, if more for its booky texture than its actual text, but also for the promise of something bigger in adulthood that it seemed to contain, although what I didn't know. I guessed I would have to wait. I flicked through the pages and returned to my Colin Thiele. Still it stood proudly on my shelves like a trophy I hadn't one yet. I can't recall when it was lost, borrowed or swept up in some weekend chucking bee. Like the author, mysteriously lost to history. I hope it's on a shelf somewhere in a suburban home or charity bookstall, rather than in landfill. But this book has ensured I will forever be scouring second book stores to be reunited with it.
August 4, 2016
I enjoyed Thornton's style and his obsession with Moorehead. Most of all I guess I enjoyed understanding more about Alan Moorehead and how quickly his star has faded
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