The Boy Behind the Curtain

by Tim Winton

The remarkable true stories in The Boy Behind the Curtain reveal an intimate and rare view of Tim Winton’s imagination at work and play. A chronicler of sudden turnings, brutal revelations and tender sideswipes, Tim Winton has always been in the business of trouble. In his novels chaos waits in the wings and ordinary people are ambushed by events and emotions beyond their control. But as these extraordinarily powerful memoirs show, the abrupt and the headlong are old familiars to the author himself, for in many ways his has been a life shaped by havoc.



In The Boy Behind the Curtain Winton reflects on the accidents, traumatic and serendipitous, that have influenced his view of life and fuelled his distinctive artistic vision. On the unexpected links between car crashes and religious faith, between surfing and writing, and how going to the wrong movie at the age of eight opened him up to a life of the imagination. And in essays on class, fundamentalism, asylum seekers, guns and the natural world he reveals not only the incidents and concerns that have made him the much-loved writer he is, but some of what unites the life and the work.



By turns impassioned, funny, joyous, astonishing, this is Winton’s most personal book to date, an insight into the man who’s held us enthralled for three decades and helped us reshape our view of ourselves. Behind it all, from risk-taking youth to surprise-averse middle age, has been the crazy punt of staking everything on becoming a writer.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Biography, Australia, Autobiography, Biography Memoir, Essays

Audio CD

First published October 3, 2016

About the author

Tim Winton was born in Perth, Western Australia, but moved at a young age to the small country town of Albany.

While a student at Curtin University of Technology, Winton wrote his first novel, An Open Swimmer. It went on to win The Australian/Vogel Literary Award in 1981, and launched his writing career. In fact, he wrote "the best part of three books while at university". His second book, Shallows, won the Miles Franklin Award in 1984. It wasn't until Cloudstreet was published in 1991, however, that his career and economic future were cemented.

In 1995 Winton’s novel, The Riders, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, as was his 2002 book, Dirt Music. Both are currently being adapted for film. He has won many other prizes, including the Miles Franklin Award three times: for Shallows (1984), Cloudstreet (1992) and Dirt Music (2002). Cloudstreet is arguably his best-known work, regularly appearing in lists of Australia’s best-loved novels. His latest novel, released in 2013, is called Eyrie.

He is now one of Australia's most esteemed novelists, writing for both adults and children. All his books are still in print and have been published in eighteen different languages. His work has also been successfully adapted for stage, screen and radio. On the publication of his novel, Dirt Music, he collaborated with broadcaster, Lucky Oceans, to produce a compilation CD, Dirt Music – Music for a Novel.

He has lived in Italy, France, Ireland and Greece but currently lives in Western Australia with his wife and three children.

Reviews

[PattyMacDotComma · Rating 5 out of 5]

5★
“I credit surfing with getting me through adolescence. When I was lonely, confused and angry, the ocean was always there, a vast salty poultice sucking the poison from my system.”

From his earliest memories with his working class family in rural Western Australia to his international success as an author, Tim Winton shares his musings on childhood (as “the boy behind the curtain” lining up the neighbours with a rifle!*), surfing and snorkling (testing himself to extremes by holding his breath while exploring underwater caves, looking for daylight and a way out!), to conservation (saving Ningaloo Reef from development) and his love of the desert country and interest and respect for the Aboriginal people who were here first.

In amongst all that is family, fishing, camping in the bush, writing in a castle in Ireland, and the life-changing fear he had as a young boy for his almost fatally injured copper father. Later, he suffered the same fear for himself when he woke up in hospital in a similar condition after his own crash.

“And in the ambulance I could not move a limb. Some bloke with hairy arms was holding me down. It wasn’t a rescue – it was a kidnapping.”

Anyone who’s spent time recovering in a hospital bed should identify with the following. After a long time as a boy, waiting for his father to come home when they thought he might never recover, Winton was miserable finding himself in the same place.

“As you lie awake in the wee hours the squeak of castors in the distance telegraphs the certainty that something is coming, coming, coming. Something better, something awful, some food, some unspeakable procedure. You’re hooked up to machines that whirr and burp and chirp and the same nurses who sternly tell you to get your rest will bellow and gossip outside your door all night.”

His language is wonderful and accessible, and it’s not by accident. Well, in some ways, it is by “accident” because he realised he needed more words. Wishing he could help his copper dad once when he was in strife, he writes

“What I saw was my father under siege. And I couldn’t help him. I stayed where I was, lashed to the wheel, in a state I had no language for.”

Another time in his youth:

“I felt I’d been consigned to exile but I lacked a language that matched my apprehensions and anxieties. Without words I was dangerously powerless.
. . .
As a kid there are times when you brim with things that need saying but lack the words or suspect there’s no one willing to listen.”

He had always wanted to write and planned to work on the docks and boats to support himself, but after his accident, he realised he’d have to get serious really quickly. He went to the only Australian university that offered a degree in Creative Writing, which, as luck would have it, was in Western Australia. He found his words.

I’ve loved his short stories, his essays, his novels, his interviews and his articles. Some more than others, of course, but I never tire of his descriptions and insight. I have seen Wedgetail Eagles, and this . . . this is true.

“That afternoon I lost count of the wedgetail eagles patrolling the highway. Hunkered on shaggy legs over the burst remains of mammals, they were an impressive sight. As I approached them, barrelling along at full tilt, they collected themselves in ponderous articulations of bone and feather and sinew to get themselves aloft. In flight they were majestic, every one of them a glory to behold.”

I’ve read several of these stories where they were originally published in magazines or elsewhere. The long article about saving Ningaloo Reef describes his steep learning curve into how politics and community activism work. He figured out when to lie low and when he had to show his face as the “celebrity drawcard” for rallies. He managed to appeal to a broad cross-section of people anxious to preserve some of Australia’s natural heritage”

“. . . a truly unexpected coalition was born. Rural business and urban greenies? Commercial fishermen and greenies? You bet. Outside every meeting, from the North West Cape to Cottesloe, there were Kombis and BMWs, bicycles and utes. Suddenly we had a movement wherein you’d find the facially pierced and the bark-knuckled. All preconceptions were pointless, though I was once kicked out of the Coral Bay pub for being barefoot after six p.m. There’s a limit, I guess.”

There are twenty or so essays and articles and reminiscences here from a man who from an early age had the courage of his convictions – he would write, no matter what. His work has been turned into plays, films, and he has an international audience. But inside, he’s still the boy behind the curtain, peering out, trying to figure out what’s happening. These days, he has a pen in hand, though, not the family rifle.

* P.S. In all fairness, I should add that the rifle was unloaded and the bolt was out, but as the son of a policeman, Tim knew how completely he was breaking all rules of decency when he had the house to himself by lining up unsuspecting passersby like a sniper. Had his folks ever discovered him . . . I'm not sure he knows even now how that might have changed him and the family forever.

[Bianca · Rating 4 out of 5]

As I've professed before, Tim Winton is my favourite Australian author.

I had the good fortune to get The Boy Behind the Curtain (and six others) signed by him at the launch of this book, in October 2016 (there's a photo with Winton himself in my profile - don't mind the star struck, giddy, tired me). As I'm busy with other reading commitments, I've listened to the audio of this book, which was read by Winton himself.

I was made to believe that this was a memoir, but it's more of a collection of essays, with some childhood recollections and other issues. Unsurprisingly, the Australian environment and the landscape are prominent in this book. If you'd seen Winton on TV or had heard him interviewed on the radio, you would have noticed a softly spoken, unassuming and very uncomfortable to talk about himself individual - so unlike many of the famous, prestigious male writers. So I expected this book not to be that revelatory, in a very personal, show all your dirty laundry kind of way. What I didn't expect was to feel like I have read some of the essays before. True, a couple of months ago, I had listened to another sort of biographical collection of essays Island Home, so many of the themes, essays on the environment seemed very similar to that book. Or it could just be that I am so very familiar with Tim Winton's writing and the themes closest to his heart?

Of course, the writing is excellent. Given that so much is about Western Australia just makes this book even more appealing.

Regardless of my fan girl status, I will say that this book was poorly edited, the essays could have been arranged better so that the last essay was not the one on Winton discovering art at the National Gallery of Victoria. It looked like a money raising exercise. Luckily, Winton can get away with it. Or maybe I'm just blinded by love?

This book counts towards my Aussie Author Challenge 2017 on http://bookloverbookreviews.com/readi...

[Steve lovell · Rating 4 out of 5]

He's a living national treasure. In his fiction Tim Winton takes the pulse of what has and does make us tick as Australians, particularly those of us who grew up on our nation's great littoral and away from the mega-cities. He connects us to the sea – and to where the bush or desert meets the sea. His books, like the television series such as the iconic 'SeaChange' and these days '800 Words', despite the latter being set in NZ, help nurture the urge to make our own lives more elemental, less digitalised; less rapacious. Perhaps just plain simpler – maybe somewhat the way it used to be.

Of course 'Cloudstreet' has been the golden egg for him – and for many Australians it is the best book written in this country. It's a classic, but if this scribe had just one of his to choose from to snuggle up to on a desert island with it would be 'The Riders' – perhaps with 'Dirt Music' in reserve. But no less important has been his fare for younger folk. His 'Lockie Leonard' trilogy hit a nerve for a generation, linked in with its own televsion series. The lad going scumbusting was a favourite staple of mine in the classroom for years. 'Blueback' is another treasure.

As Malcolm Knox, no slouch in the wordsmithery department himself, has commented on Winton that he '...has been shy about revealing himself through the clearer glass of non-fiction writing.' This has changed, though, in recent times. Long content to pass on certain messages through the words of his fictional characters, he first started to expose himself with the fight to save Nigaloo Reef. Then, last year, TW peeped further above the parapet with 'Island Home'. And in 2016 went bravely over the top with 'The Boy Behind the Curtain' – so in his later years the shyness has dissipated.

'Island Home' was much about the landscape and its effect on the mind. With the latest publication, it is more about the mind itself – revealing what, indeed, makes him tick. But, of course, I, as a long time reader, thought I had a fair handle on that anyway. I was wrong. We all know of Winton's love of the briny, particularly surfing, that, for some, can take the form of a religion. Then there's his impressive 'get' of our indigenous people's connection with country. In both of these non-fiction tomes there's passion expressed on the big issues, developed through his personal history. He may be slow to rouse, but in the end, he's pulling no punches. He knows the way it has to go – all of us do if we have a brain to bless ourselves with. But with the likes of Abbott – as well as Abbott-lite in Turnbull - we'll never get there. In the bigger picture, throwing Trump into the mix, it would seem the task is pretty hopeless. Knowing doesn't develop the collective will, but Tim W's writing in both of these outings sure gives encouragement to make headway.

The major aspect of the author's make-up I didn't know was his connection to evangelical religion. When Winton was a kid his father, a motor cycle cop, had a near death experience when he came off his bike. A pall came down on young Tim's household as his dad battled to recover from his ordeal. One of his carers was deeply into religion and his father was converted. Back in the day this resulted in the whole family becoming church-goers. Most of us are formed by home upbringing and school as the power of organised religion wanes. For Tim it seems it was family and the Bible. 'Even if the Australian society of my childhood was militarily irreligious, the church was my first and most formative culture. It was, in effect, the village I was raised in, and in many senses this meant I grew up in a counter culture, although it was the sort in which beads, feathered hats and granny glasses were worn without the sense of performance that arrived with the hippies.'

His family became happy-clappers, joining the Church of Christ, an Americam import. All this ran kilter to my impressions of Winton, but undoubtedly it had a profound impact. In the tale 'Twice on Sundays', from 'A Boy Behind the Curtain', even though some of what occurred to him as a member of this church's congregation seems a tad spooky, it was here, rather than at school, that he was exposed to story. And we, as his readers, excusing the pun, thank heavens that he did.

Much in both books has seen the light of day in stand-alone airings for newspapers and journals, but there is mint new writing as well. In 'TBBTC's' 'Stones for Bread' we have an example of his passion as expressed back in March of 2015 for the Fairfax Press. Here we have Winton using his pen to scribe his disappointment at our politician's appalling treatment – anti-Christian treatment – of those refugees asking our country to keep them safe. With this article his whole being is exposed for pot-shots to be aimed from the far right and our odious shock jocks – but, of course, there's safety in numbers, to an extent. His is by no means a lone voice decrying our leaders' hypocrisy, on many fronts, in placing the innocents into such dire situations on off shore islands.

As one would expect, there's some lovely stuff in 'Island Home: A Landscape Memoir'. The image on the cover and endpapers, with their immense beach and tiny human figures, gives our first indication of how this writer views the vastness of a country, a vastness that isn't entirely confined to the Outback alone. There are a humongous number of kilometres of almost untouched coastline. Early on here he remarks on how he found the difference from his homeland to what he found on his European adventurings. Visiting that continent he struggled with scale, in that '...the dimensions of physical space seemed compressed. The looming physical pressure of mountains cut me off from the horizon. I'd not lived with that kind of spatial curtain before...For a West Australian like me, whose default setting is in diametric opposition, and for whom space is the impinging force, the effect is claustrophobic. I think I was constantly and instinctively searching for distances that were unavailable, measuring space and coming up short.'

I loved the essay 'Barefoot and Unhurried'. Here Tim writes of the pleasures of grandfatherhood – of how he's watching his offsprings' children '...taking the world in through their skin...Being short and powerless kids see the world low down and close up...In childhood you own little more than your secret places, the thoughts in your head...' and so on. Magic stuff – stuff that I see in my own precious granddaughter and will see in the one on the way. He went on to recount his own childhood of freedoms where there was, '...strange comfort in the hiss of the stick I trailed in the dirt all afternoon, and in the whispery footfalls on the empty beach.' That bit got to me. What got to Delia Falconer, in her review of 'Island Home', was when Winton went exploring the cliffs facing Ningaloo and he happened on a cave. He entered and discovered it seemed to be the place the local kangaroos came to die, their carcasses then mummified by the dry desert air. These were, he writes, '...still themselves, still beautiful...like an ancient priestly caste keeping vigil even in death.'

For a while our four times Miles Franklin winner-to-be lived in Albany in the era when Australia's last whaling station was in operation. As a callow kid he loved going down to where the flensing yards were located to watch the tourists, on their viewing platforms, turn green and retch at the smell and sights before them as the behemoths from the deep were disemboweled. 'This was what the town was built on – a century and a half of seizing, killing, breaking and boiling.' That kid went on to write 'Blueback'. He tells of the men, in 'Corner of the Eye', that helped shape the values he holds today in regards the environment. They came to him, via television, into his family lounge room. There were Harry Potter, Vincent Serventy and dare I say it, Rolf Harris, in 'Rolf's Walkabout'.

Another strong impression was made on his mind by a recluse. This story is told in 'Waychinicup', relating to an area now a national park. Frank was '… a squatter in search of peace and quiet.' and the future Booker Prize double nominee became '… a puppy like nuisance intruding on the space of a bloke who treasured his privacy.' Frank, with his wheelbarrow, used for carting goods to his remote location, became the inspiration for the old hermit a lost couple encounters in his tale 'Wilderness', featured in his first short story collection, 'Scission', from 1985. Several yarns, the now 56 year old, relates from his childhood in the two books under review here, such as when he and his father came across an accident victim during his youth, were inspiration for tales in this collection.

With 'Scission' one can see that, at this early stage, his writing is not the powerful beast it becomes. And not all his stories work – for this reader anyhow. To me he was fine in the core, but endings were problematical. Perhaps he learnt that he'd be more at home in the longer form – he certainly would be once he prised the remarkable 'Cloudstreet' out of himself. Still, there was much joy to be had in 'Scission' with tales such as 'A Blow, a Kiss', 'Thomas Awkner Floats' and 'Neighbours'. In these we can sense the future.

'When I was a kid I liked to stand at the window with a rifle and aim it at people.' This was the unsettling opening sentence to 'The Boy Behind the Curtain'. We're sucked in from the get-go. For Winton, as for me, guns were a part of life as a child in our shared era. We were easy around them. My father taught me the fundamentals and the dangers – and in no uncertain terms were we to not deviate from the guidelines he laid down for their use. We knew where the ammo was kept – and there it would stay, unless we were in his company to discharge it. For our country Port Arthur changed everything, but I had long before distanced myself from any form of gun culture. But as a kid it was fun to imagine – even if Winton took it a little further.

And in another story I found out what a boodie is. Reading about this animal here I felt a bit like Martin Clunes who came to Tassie as part of his documentary series, 'The Islands of Australia', discovering, as well as actually holding, an animal he'd never heard of – our quoll. I doubt I'll ever handle a boodie. Winton had never heard of the creature either until he was outback and a station leaseholder, John Underwood, introduced him to the animals' deserted burrows. John explained to Tim that the little creatures were extinct on the mainland since the 1960s, but still could be found on a couple of isolated islands in Shark Bay. Tim was explained to that the boodie was a relative of the woylie??? It became clearer for Tim when he heard they were types of bettongs. Tim doubted he would ever get to see one. Slowly, carefully the boodie is now being introduced back into highly protected areas on the mainland. It was a delight to read of the author, along with Tim Flannery and Luc Longley, of basketball fame, helping to introduce boodies to their new surrounds. So Tim got to handle a boodie.

In 'The Boy behind the Curtain' there's so much to give pleasure. His paean to Elizabeth Jolley, an early mentor, is very engaging. He also takes us into the arguments concerning sharks' rights, when it comes to the shallows, and he examines his own role, when he first put his head above the parapet, in 'The Battle for Nigaloo Reef'.

'We rise to a challenge and set a course. We take a decision. You put your mind to something. Just deciding to do so it gets you half way there. Daring to try.' This quote is from Winton's 2013 novel 'Eyrie'. The legend has been a published wordwrangler since 1981 and as with the quote, he has dared himself in so many ways, when he's been at the crossroads during his career. He dared to write at so young an age, dared himself to get involved in causes that were right and he dared to open himself up to scrutiny in 'Island Home' and 'The Boy Behind the Curtain'. You can keep the reader at arm's length with fiction, but now we know much more about the man, thanks to these two publications. What will he dare to do next I wonder? We wait in anticipation.

[Nick Bailey · Rating 4 out of 5]

4/5

This memoir had a patchwork of anecdotes from Winton's boyhood and more in depth essays on the polictical landscape and the natural environment, with a particular focus on his local coastal haunt in Western Australia. The environmental stuff reminded me of his other nonfiction work, Island Home. It reminded me a lot of it.

I personally favoured the boyhood anecdotes section. They were raw and gripping. Enhanced by Winton's distinctive authorial voice, descriptions like "shadows as dark as bruises" just assaulted and demanded my attention. Yet my mind drifted in the more environmentally focused essays. Not because I see them as unimportant, there was just an overload of these types of pieces in the book. Community and place are key Winton themes that he normally handles exquisitely. I just found myself a bit disengaged this time, finding some sections almost like a chore that just needed to be finished.

I'm noticing as I read more of Helen Garner's work I'm taking a firm view that her nonfiction is excellent, but I have less and less time for her fiction. And with Tim Winton, I'm beginning to come to the opposite view...

However, there was one essay in this later section that stood out. The C-Word, it discusses how Winton can't see class dispassionately as modern Australians are still deeply subject to its influence. It is an outcome of class that means we live in a country where some are not equipped with the basic literacy and numeracy skills to face the challenges of society. He further notes that we have moved from being collective citizens to individual consumers. And many are now so concerned with appearing to be in a certain class that they bankrupt themselves doing so. He makes the observation that those who were able to escape the rocky seas of lower class Australia through Whitman's social policies of the 1970s pulled the ladder up with them once they got in the boat. The lower middle class is not just a victim in Winton's eyes, as he emphasises while they make a lot of noise about how they have been hard done by, they forget about the class below them who are living in abject poverty and have no mobility. Two particular quotes on the final pages caught my attention:

- "The decency of our society used to be the measure of its success."
- "The government is abandoning those at the bottom while pandering to the appetites of the comfortable."

It is painful how accurate the observations in this 8 year old book still are.

[Marie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tim Winton is an Australian literary legend. His writing career (which has produced twenty-eight books, as well as numerous essays and short stories) began with winning the Australian Vogel Award in 1981 for his first published book, An Open Swimmer. In 1984, his second novel, Shallows, won the Miles Franklin Award. In fact, he has won the Miles Franklin Award (arguably Australia’s most prestigious literature prize) a record four times. He has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize twice and among other accolades, The National Trust has named him a Living Treasure.

The first thing that struck me when I met Tim Winton late last year was his self-effacing, almost humble, presence. Dressed in jeans and a comfy surf-branded t-shirt, with his greying hair pulled back in a ponytail, this luminary would have blended easily into a crowd. The second thing that struck me was his spoken style. Intelligent, articulate and possessing a vocabulary that made me think of a Thesaurus – peppering his conversation naturally with the most extraordinary words. Words that writers of commercial fiction are advised to steer away from. But Tim Winton is not a writer of commercial fiction; he said himself at the book launch for The Boy Behind The Curtain that he ‘doesn’t do genre’.

His breathtaking lexicon is employed masterfully in his latest book. Yet the memoir reads like a chat between friends – at times disarming as he shares insights his personal self, like his fear of hospitals where he writes, ‘Eventually my long suffering wife relented and took me out to an astroturfed courtyard where the air was real and the open sky merciful. And that’s where he found us, our eldest son, the colicky boy we’d nursed in the hospital carpark all those nights a lifetime ago, holding his tiny squinting daughter in the sunshine.’ He also shares his religious beliefs throughout the book, saying ‘it was church that taught me the beauty and power of language.’
At other times he is scathing about mindless attitudes towards controversial issues such as shark demonization, class, politics, and environmental damage. Regarding the refugee crisis, he argues that Australian society is ‘afraid of strangers and their traumatized children’. And that ‘this fear has deranged us. It overturns all our civic standards, our pity, our tradition of decency, to the extent that we do everything in our power to deny these people their legal right to seek asylum.’ His arguments are always thought provoking.

The choice of book title, The Boy Behind The Curtain, becomes clear from the very first line. Tim Winton describes himself as a thirteen year old with a secret habit of standing behind a terylene curtain with a .22 single-shot Lithgow rifle, holding passers-by in it’s sights. It introduces us to his adolescent state of mind, and the effect puberty and his family’s move from suburban Perth to the regional town of Albany had on him at the time. ‘I didn’t just treat the rifle as a source of talismanic power – it was a stilling point, a centering locus, like a religious icon.’
He shares various childhood gun experiences, which segues nicely into his adult position on gun violence and laws, and his decision not to own a gun now, even though ‘the awkward fact is I could really do with a rifle’ – he lives in the bush on a property ‘overrun with rabbits and feral cats’.

Having been lucky enough to attend Tim Winton’s book signing and author talk (held at Beaufort Street Books in Mt Lawley, Perth) an added delight for me while reading this book was hearing Tim’s voice in my head as I was reading it, especially the verses he read aloud at the book launch. The chapter named Betsy is especially entertaining, sharing memories of the family car, a 1954 Hillman Minx named Betsy, which was originally owned by his grandfather. Hearing him read the passage out loud about the day his family moved back to Perth from Albany was hilarious. His voice, expression and timing of punch lines suited the passage perfectly. He writes, ‘From boyhood I had known my father to be a man of kindly nature but irritable bowel’. He and his brother were ‘hostages as much as passengers in the dreaded Minx’ during the several-hour trip that summer’s day. Tim Winton read about his father finally pulling over and stopping at the side of the road, ‘A rapid examination of his person – conducted, of course, in full of the rural motoring public – established the unpalatable facts, the finer details of which needn’t be gone into here. Suffice to say that in the event of an unscheduled roadside comfort stop, a long and saggy singlet is not helpful attire. Dad had brought a stowaway aboard.’ As you could probably imagine, the audience erupted in laughter. As I read this chapter myself later, I could picture Tim Winton chuckling to himself as he wrote it.

A potential weakness of the book is that some of the book’s material has been previously published. This may be disappointing for those who have read Tim Winton widely, however the ‘Acknowledgements’ page at the rear of the book clearly discloses this fact.

Tim’s personality truly shines throughout the whole book. I had no pre-conceptions of what to expect at the launch of Tim Winton’s memoir (other than knowing he was a best selling Western Australian author). I was captivated. There’s no doubt this influenced my reading of the book.

[Ryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s been a while since I last picked up a Tim Winton: about 7 years or so. I found this collection of essays and shorter pieces told me a lot about what living in Australia is actually like, and not just because of the words you are expected to pick up along the way. (Wandoo, banksia, potoroos, bilbies, boodie.) By the time I finished, I had stopped automatically thinking of the rainy place in Scotland whenever the name Perth is mentioned.

Perhaps the best piece is about his parents, holy rollers of the twice-on-Sunday type, and which is not entirely comical. Though still a believer (Winton quotes Les Murray frequently, which is an early tip off) he is not a Biblical literalist, and is impatient with any form of Christianity that can’t roll its sleeves up. He detests Murdoch lackeys that keep a palace watch on what they deem ‘the politics of envy’ and how they render discussion taboo. ‘Having uttered the C-word in polite company I felt, for a moment, as if I’d shat in the municipal pool.’ The ‘c-word’ is ‘class.’

Winton comes across as a decent man, humane, with a series of quite mundane phobias, contradictions and causes. Most of the essays follow a set pattern: reminiscence, reflection, followed by a moral. The piece about gun ownership seems the most powerful, not least when Winton mines his childhood experiences and linking them to global concerns. There is no air of moral superiority or smugness, which makes his conclusions all the sharper. ‘For those who claim to believe that God is Greatest, the AK-47 ends the discussion.’

[George · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting collection of essays mainly about the author’s childhood and issues that particularly are of concern to him. His father was a police officer who narrowly escaped death in a car accident. The author was also involved in a car accident before he was ten years old. Both events had an impact on his thinking. Tim Winton enjoys surfing, living on the coast and being involved in organizations focussed on protecting the environment. He describes his experiences with whales, dolphins and sharks. He believes Australians should be more accepting of refugees and that something more should be done to help the disadvantaged poor people. There is a chapter on his University creative writing lecturer, the famous Australian author, Elizabeth Jolley.

There is little discussion of any of his books, his writing process or his immediate family.

Readers who want to know about Tim Winton, the author, will gain a better idea of the man, however this book is fairly impersonally written.

I am a Tim Winton fan and found the book a very worthwhile reading experience.

This book was first published in 2016.

[Carmel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great book if you are like many Australians and consider Tim Winton to be one of our greatest authors ever. This book is in part autobiography - a reminisce and meander through Tim’s life as told by him - and part commentary and opinion piece on matters close to Wintons heart. Of course the language used is mesmerizing and compact - he tells us so much in few words. You can definately understand his novels more - their setting, their symbolism - after reading this account of his youth. The book is vast in its opinions as Winton let’s us in on his views on such things as surfing, hospitals, religion ( very interesting), marine park conservation, the class system in Australia, writing, travel, refugees and the art world. It came to a bit of an abrupt ending which made me feel like it was more a bringing together of opinion pieces in one place but the first half of the book was particularly good as it traversed through Winton dealing with tragedy in his young life and being saved by seeing the wrong movie at the cinema and discovering surfing.

[Mag · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have always liked Tim Winton as a writer. Now I can say that I like him as a person as well. This memoir in short essay-like pieces read by the author is a real pleasure to listen to.

[Linards Jansons · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tim Winton makes anything he writes about interesting, compelling and vivid. That was my experience with this collection of non-fiction pieces based on Winton’s life as a child and adult. Originally I had only planned to reread ‘A Space Odyssey at Eight’. As it turned out, every piece I started grabbed me till the end. What’s more, they elicited reflection on a range of levels, hence these somewhat quasi-personal responses.

In ‘The Boy Behind the Curtain’ he writes: “When I was a kid I liked to stand at the window with a rifle and aim it at people”. The following pages are an exploration of why, and he confesses that years later this urge remains a mystery. What got me, though, was the realisation that my only visit to Perth – in 1973 as a 6 year old – coincided with the very time 13 year old Winton was getting a bead on passers by. I could have been killed! Or at least emotionally harmed (as he never loaded up). However, one day he put aside this disturbing habit and got on with life. Much of that life has since been taken up with writing, not shooting. In hindsight he is grateful (and so am I) that he put words, rather than bullets, between himself and the world.

I read ‘Havoc: a Life in Accidents’ just before turning out the light. I literally felt my breathing elevate, my muscles tense, my eyes staring at scenes of carnage in the blank space between the lines. Lying in a comfortable bed, I felt walloped by reality.

‘A Space Odyssey at Eight’ is so damned funny. I don’t care how much he may have embellished the account, his depiction of a bunch of unsuspecting 8-year’olds having the tripe scared out of them by Kubrik’s 2001 is one that gives me pleasure every time. “Enter the monolith” he writes of that early scene in the film. “And when the primates woke, well, they went apeshit. The return of Ligeti’s Requiem can’t have helped. I think we were all as confused and appalled as the chimps”. The addition of the words “and appalled” makes me laugh even now. Ahh.

The collection of writings on sharks gave me a sense of vicarious nostalgia. My parents enjoyed skin diving in that same 1960’s, and the names of Rodney Fox and Ron and Valerie Taylor were a household name. One of my earliest memories is also my first introduction to the ‘demon shark’: black and white footage of a figure rapidly hauled out of the water, deep in shock, leg stump squirting black blood all over the jetty. Later, one of the first fat books I read was Jaws. Yet the fear of this scapegoated creature is as irrational as it is destructive. As Winton writes, “the very real likelihood of being mangled in a car is something we’ve domesticated. That’s not simply a contradiction, it’s a marvel of human psychology”. And the fact that angry white men are more likely to die from straining on the toilet than from a shark encounter, now that is the stuff of nightmares.

In ‘Letter from a Strong Place’ there is a sense of agitation and restlessness. Caretaking a gothic ruin in Ireland, and regaled by a flow of local horror stories, Winton is appreciative and amused, but not at home. Stories emerge from a deep connection with place, and this was not his place: “More than just the constant brooding mass of the castle leaning out at me every hour, it’s a weight of story that’s almost burdensome. This is not my place; it’s bursting with stories but they’re not mine to tell. My myths were handed down in suburban streets by the sea…” No matter what the story he tells in this volume, or the issue, Winton is deeply rooted in a native habitat (West Australian, coastal) that has formed both his person and his writing. This has made me wonder: what is my connection to place? Do I really have one? How does this connect/disconnect influence they way I think, read, express myself? Does ‘place’ even have to be a geographical locale?

Part of what makes a place is community, and for the young Winton church played a major role. So it did for me, hence my interest in ‘Twice on Sundays’. Despite the difference between my pietist Lutheranism and his fundamentalist evangelicalism, there were many lines of connection. The following captured one such similarity: “Ours was a yeoman farmer’s religion, the province of humble folk and autodidacts. Its mindset and temper were rooted in a pre-industrial era”. And yet, perhaps belatedly, Winton is expressing gratitude for the humanity, generosity and love of language and story this poorly educated community of believers bequeathed to him. Despite their limited education, these “cardigan-wearing seekers” of Winton’s childhood were unprepossessing bearers of culture and civilisation. Even more surprisingly, “religious life was like a childhood inoculation against social conformity”. Somewhat paradoxically – and perhaps this is only works in secular environment – it was church that taught Winton the values and ingredients of a civil life. But from a reader’s perspective, perhaps the most enjoyable legacy of Winton’s biblically saturated upbringing is the deep well of humour he can draw on. His commentary on Sunday church is anything but boring, it reads much more like the weekend round up of sport. And thanks to him, I just heard Satan clearing his throat when my neighbour throttled up his engine and took off up the hill!

Sometimes Winton’s biblical imagery colours his writing in less obvious ways. In ‘Lighting Out’ Winton is driving along the Nullarbor, practically comatose from the trauma of performing emergency triage on a novel that consumed 7 years of his life and almost failed (Eyrie). Wrestling with lingering afterthoughts, he is struck by the sight of two wedge tailed eagles locked in possession over a third: “They were struggling over the carcass, each bird with a wingtip in its beak so that in the midst of this tug of war the dead raptor rose from the gravel to its full span, dancing upright, feathers bristling in the wind. I was tired and slightly loopy, it’s true, but it looked to me as if that eagle were taunting me, capering at the roadside as if to say, Here I am, not gone yet! To me this sounds like someone whose personal and vocational crisis has merged almost unconsciously with motifs of death and resurrection.

Personally however, I thought Winton’s most profound and most spiritual piece was his shortest, ‘A Walk at Low Tide’. God is not mentioned, perhaps not even intended, but his creedal phraseology read like a hymn of life. Even the most familiar stretch of beach reveals an urge to live that characterises all existence: “the ongoing struggle and the yearning of all things seen and unseen”. The shells and rocks and jellyfish along one’s path, so easily ignored or pocketed, are not just objects, but “subjects that ache to be fed, seek the light, and tilt toward increase in a creation that has been burning and lapping and gnawing and withering and rotting and flowering since there was nothing in the cosmos but shivering potential”. Noticing this urge to exist and flourish is how one responds to the mystery embedded in all things. By contrast, “to tread here and never pay tribute, to glance and just see objects, is to be spiritually impoverished”.

This is a book I will return to again: enjoyable, profound, funny, Australian, spiritual…perhaps not always easy to find in one book.

[Jono Swanton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well worth the $22.40 overdue fee Lizzy incurred from the library. ‘Twice on Sundays’ the crown jewel of the book

[Scout · Rating 3 out of 5]

A suprisingly thoughtful insight into the Australia around before I was born.

[Annette Chidzey · Rating 5 out of 5]

This Winton's expose captured me from the outset and reminded me of his great strength as a master story-teller. In part, this book was so compelling in its early sections because it resonated so strongly with my own childhood and adolescent experiences that I felt I was reading about what happened to me growing up rather than what happened to Winton.
I recalled the influence of Sunday School and church in shaping my sense of self and I laughed at loud when I read about Betsy the Hillman Minx sedan as we had one ourselves and his recollections paralleled some of my memories and experiences!
Yet it is Winton's ability to cause me to consider more deeply the impact of these parallel experiences that I am most grateful for and why I react so strongly to what he creates for his readers. For instance on this occasion, he has helped me to realise that church, too, was my first cultural breeding ground to experience and appreciate the value and richness of narrative and story-telling- a realisation that had never occurred to me until now.
Certainly some sections touched me more than others but I can honestly say that when I pick up a Winton expose, I am rarely if ever disappointed. This latest offering proved to be no exception.

[bianca · Rating 1 out of 5]

probably the worst thing i have ever had to read for school - or ever.

i am a firm believer that unless you are famous, you should not be writing a book about your own, boring life. this was torture to get through. i ended up looking at a website for the story summaries to end my suffering early. this inspired absolutely no inspiration in me to write a story of my own based on this book - in fact i have no desire to write a story of my own THANKS TO this book. absolute worst thing i have ever been subjected to read.

the stories lacked flavour, i mean sure the first few had at least some interesting elements to them, but as the story progresses winton keeps contradicting himself. he will state in one story that this major event changed his life but then in another claim that he has been doing something his whole life, never mentioning a traumatic event triggering it.

i basically dnfed it by listening to it on audio and using a seperate website for plot summaries. thank god its over!!!!!!!!!

[Rbnnn44 · Rating 1 out of 5]

I had to read this book for English and it sucked I felt like I was in a 100 hour long seminar every time I had to read a chapter. He says surfing brought out the writer in him but he obviously did NOT go surfing before writing this book. Jesus Christ it was bad. I would rather read Shakespeare. I felt like I was reading Hilary Clintons autobiography.
I felt like I was getting unwillingly told my weird annoying uncle who no one talks to's life story at a family party I didnt want to be at in the first place.

Sorry Timmy, this sucked.

[Sean Kennedy · Rating 4 out of 5]

What is being touted as an 'autobiography' by publishers is really just a collection of autobiographical essays that have been collected in one volume, but that doesn't mean it isn't any good. Winton is always at his best when he writes about water - whether it be the rivers in Cloudstreet or the ocean in Shallows and Breath - and the writing in his stories about surfing, water conservation, sharks and whales are breathtakingly beautiful and totally immersive.

[Lauren Marsland · Rating 5 out of 5]

'In the face of mystery, it seems no language is sufficient. Every expression is partial, contingent, as if written in sand .... At its best it's poetic, for any discussion of the divine rests on metaphor, but what a peculiar task it is to try to describe silence.'

[Jazzy Lemon · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is nice to know i have enough in common with Tim Winton, and enough differences, to keep us in conversation over a cup of tea.

[Judy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have loved every minute of reading this book with my ears, especially as it was read to me by Mr Winton himself. There was a sense of the familiar in nearly every story and I joyfully found the origins of many of his books. Yes I admit it, I am a Tim Winton Tragic, but who can blame me. If you love words strung together in ways that sing to you you will love Mr Wintons work
Summary of each story.....
1. The boy behind the curtain. Incredible insight into the teenage years and how a life can be altered forever on one action or instant.
2. A space odyssey at 8. Wow. A life changing experience of cinema and space through the eyes of an 8 year old and beyond
3. Havoc a life in accidents. The impact of horrible accidents on a child reared with the cocoon of a caring family. Causes me to reflect on the impact horror and violence must have on developing children who are exposed to such events without the cushion of family support. And a musing on the place of havoc in our lives and our perception of reality
4. A Walk At Low Tide. Poetry on life. Of my. Favourite. On seeing, really seeing. I have read this story 5 times, over and over and over. It is so profound for me
5. Repatriation.. the WA wheat belt, as described " the dead zone of the wheat belt" then further west. An education in conservation and human and hoofed footed animal impact. And talking about the AWC. A lesson for most of us in taking on conservation in action, in heart and in mind
6. Betsy. A not at all cool old Hillman Minx and memories of grand pop. Cloudstreet origins
7. Twice on Sundays. The marathon of being in an evangelical family. So much sounds so familiar to me. I love the sentence. "Sunday with us was only for the hardy". Tim Winton has managed make me reconsider my background of religion from a wider viewpoint and acknowledge it's part in shaping my way of moving amongst other humans. Interesting and quite startling actually.
8. High Tide. A brief interlude underwater on an acid trip of marine life and colour
9. The wait and the flow. Trying explain the addiction and history and world of surfing to a non surfer. Amazing story
10. In the Shadow of the Hospital. The title actual explains this story of life experience
11. The Battle for Nigaloo Reef. A lesson in activism and reconsidering my natural tendency toward cynicism
12. Letter From A Strong Place. This is where The Riders spring from
13. Chancing Giants. Living close to and paddling amongst Humpback Whales and other interesting water beings
14. The Demon Shark. Incredible musings on sharks from someone who spends a lot of his time on or in the water. The vulnerability of this keystone species ( more dramatically called apex predator) in the modern ecosystem
15. Using the C word.......the pretence that there are no divisions based on social distinctions within modern society and some reflecting on decades past. Absolutely cutting. Are you brave enough to read it
16. Lighting Out. An emotional story. If you are a writer or have ever wanted to put pen to paper spend time with this one
17. Stones for Bread. On refugees, particularly "boat people". Mr Winton asks "will we sleep easy?" I know I can't. Truly we are better than this. Truly.
18. Remembering Elizabeth Jolly. Fascinating
19. Sea Change. Observations arising from a lifetime of living under, in, and close to the sea. A wise activist. References to a favourite wee book Blueback. Very sobering.
20. Barefoot in the Temple of Art. The power and influence of and changes over time to National Gallery of Victoria and applicable to all major galleries. They astound and excite and can overawe the best of us at time

[Valerie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just lovely. I would recommend for Tim Winton fans for sure. Loved his thoughts on growing up working class, being a God botherer and his thoughts about hospitals. Very relatable and engaging.

[jamie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this book for school so I read it through the lens of analysis and essay-writing. I think it was a successful work. It definitely had things it set out to achieve and I think it achieved them. Some memoirs were more interesting than others and the sequencing didn't appear to have been considered very carefully so there were a few jumps between very different topics. The writing style was solid and the vocabulary used was an unusual blend of Aussie slang and really fancy words. There were a lot of things which I think you only appreciate if you know what they're referring to, such as the NGV, and the 'Space Odyssey' memoir, which I found very entertaining, having watched the movie, but others in my class who haven't would have experienced that memoir very differently. The pace and flow and style were inconsistent, giving the whole text a sense of flux and erratic movement. I think it is important to view this text as a whole because each essay informed the others and provided layers of context. Overall I think it was good, I actually kind of enjoyed reading it, but I also think the same effect could have been achieved in half the number of pages. Can't wait to have to write essays on this (haha not)

[Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I certainly rate this book as 5 stars, not one. So glad to have another of Tim's work to read. Want to pass this on to friends, and family to read and enjoy, as well as shout out the messages about conservation, welcoming refugees, and using the c word to begin with. I relate to his own experience in travelling in the Hillman as a kid, and enjoyed finding out about Elizabeth Jolley as she was a favourite of mine. It's interesting to consider the tyranny of distance experienced by the West, particularly in relation to publishing. Makes the current celebration of 40 years publishing by Fremantle Press even more relevant to me. He helps me to see the NGV with new eyes. Also the experience of travelling the Nulabor. Thank you for sharing your writing gift with us Tim.

[Barbara Rohde · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of Winton's writings ranging from his family background through to polemics on conservation and class. Winton's writing shines best when showing us his background through the eyes of his family but his passion for conservation and politics is less convincing. He uses stats to back up his claims but does not reference them which I found annoying given today's proclivity for less than authentic 'facts' so I would like to see that he has used authoritative sources. Obviously a 'contractual obligation' publication, this would have been improved for me if there was some kind of theme running through the works.

[Jake Goretzki · Rating 4 out of 5]

Surely the most likeable man in modern letters. A breeze, all told. Some good anecdotes, a bit of urgent political polemic and quite enlightening on the writing process.

I'd never heard of Elizabeth Jolley. Or Leap Castle. Neither did I didn't realise Winton was a little bit God squad (not exactly squad) - but he carries it well. I like the idea of being in a place where all the stories have been told (Ireland, in his example) and needing to find your own spot. Must read more about Whitlam too.

[LibraryKath · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ahh Tim Winton never lets me down.

More a series of essays than a true memoir, The Boy Behind the Curtain is chock full of Tim's gorgeous prose, his grasp of language as sharp and beautiful as ever. Collecting his thoughts on subjects such as conservation, learning to write, faith and church, family, class divides, the sea, refugees and much much more, he lays them out at our feet for us to dip our toe in and enjoy the cool wash of his gorgeous language, while encouraging us to marvel at the treasures beneath.

[Troy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I struggled a bit with this. It's a collection of short autobiographical stories, that chronicle snippets of Tim's life.

I am an admirer of Tim's work, and have read most of his novels, and whilst a lot of this was interesting, there is the tendency for these things to come across as a bit self-indulgent. I read maybe half the stories and scanned most of the rest. I just found it difficult to get motivated to read.

[Deb · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a pleasant surprise. Can't say I liked all of the short stories, but many were real gems. I especially enjoyed reading Remembering Elizabeth Jolley and Lighting Out. A bit of an insight to the life of Tim Winton. Maybe it helps to live in Western Australia to give the stories more meaning. Well worth reading.

[Dylan Goddard · Rating 4 out of 5]

A couple of thoroughly enjoyable short stories, written in classic Winton phrasing, transporting you to the depths of familiarity.
Some didn't interest me greatly, but memoirs and personal anecdotes written well always provide great insight.

[Bri Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very very very good. It's the first of his work I've read (gasp, I know) and I was really impressed by the range of topics he covered and how he made me get teary but also laugh at fart jokes. Definitely recommend.

[Nicholas Carrigan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Loved all the stories and was very thought provoking. Felt a bit robbed that this was sold as a book - I wish I'd just been sent all the links to the stories when they were published in various magazines.