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Writers on Writers #1
Erik Jensen on Kate Jennings
This dazzling short book plunges the listener into the world of acclaimed novelist, memoirist, poet and pioneering feminist Kate Jennings.
Award-winning writer Erik Jensen explores the crisp, pungent prose of the novel Snake, as well as the painful history behind it. Weaving in his interviews with Jennings in New York, he shows how poetry, politics and family were transmuted into a work of art that depicts rural Australia in a funny, cutting and unforgettable way. As Kate Jennings is rediscovered by a fresh generation of writers and musicians, this book explains why her work retains its power and originality.
In the Writers on Writers series, leading writers reflect on another Australian writer who has inspired and fascinated them. Provocative, crisp and written from a practitioner's perspective, the series starts a fresh conversation between past and present, between writer and listener. It sheds light on the craft of writing, and introduces some intriguing and talented authors and their work.
Award-winning writer Erik Jensen explores the crisp, pungent prose of the novel Snake, as well as the painful history behind it. Weaving in his interviews with Jennings in New York, he shows how poetry, politics and family were transmuted into a work of art that depicts rural Australia in a funny, cutting and unforgettable way. As Kate Jennings is rediscovered by a fresh generation of writers and musicians, this book explains why her work retains its power and originality.
In the Writers on Writers series, leading writers reflect on another Australian writer who has inspired and fascinated them. Provocative, crisp and written from a practitioner's perspective, the series starts a fresh conversation between past and present, between writer and listener. It sheds light on the craft of writing, and introduces some intriguing and talented authors and their work.
- GenresBiographyNonfiction
MP3 CD
First published October 2, 2017
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
April 10, 2023
I'm so glad Erik Jensen wrote this book but I'm so sad to realise Kate Jennings' book Snake is not more widely known and appreciated. Jensen calls it the great Australian novel, and I don't think he's far wrong.
June 26, 2018
In this series of slim hardback books, an author is asked to write about another author that has inspired and fascinated them. In this edition of Writers on Writers (Black Inc Publishing 2017), Erik Jensen (founding editor of The Saturday Paper) introduces us to the author, essayist and feminist Kate Jennings. The book is the size of a novella; the essay-like chapters are broken into chunky paragraphs that explore Jennings’ writing, particularly her novella Snake, and her work practice, but also provide some insight into her life, her family history and her thoughts about the craft of writing and the world of literature.
Erik Jensen is a writer of clarity, brevity, perceptiveness and accessibility. His account of Jennings is punctuated by pithy recollections of meetings between them over the years, of some small comment she made that struck him as interesting. His writing is alive with truisms that are startling, sometimes causing me to gasp with recognition – either in response to Kate Jennings’ words, or else in response to his interpretation of them. Much as he did in his article on Helen Garner in the recent issue of The Monthly, he seems able to collect a vast store of random chats and occasional meetings, to gather opinion and gossip, to add factual research through correspondence and official documents, and to somehow parse the whole into a bright, sharp and meaningful character sketch.
I sat with a good coffee and devoured this book in one sitting. Kate Jennings’ work Snake contains many autobiographical elements of her early life, and Jensen’s book about her interweaves her fiction with her essays with her memoir with actual moments from her life. The whole comes together in an enlightening bio delivered in simple, easy to read language, which is distinguished by intermittent and rather special flashes of penetrating emotional acuity that occur when Jensen adds together the sum of the parts to reveal a concentrated whole.
Erik Jensen is a writer of clarity, brevity, perceptiveness and accessibility. His account of Jennings is punctuated by pithy recollections of meetings between them over the years, of some small comment she made that struck him as interesting. His writing is alive with truisms that are startling, sometimes causing me to gasp with recognition – either in response to Kate Jennings’ words, or else in response to his interpretation of them. Much as he did in his article on Helen Garner in the recent issue of The Monthly, he seems able to collect a vast store of random chats and occasional meetings, to gather opinion and gossip, to add factual research through correspondence and official documents, and to somehow parse the whole into a bright, sharp and meaningful character sketch.
I sat with a good coffee and devoured this book in one sitting. Kate Jennings’ work Snake contains many autobiographical elements of her early life, and Jensen’s book about her interweaves her fiction with her essays with her memoir with actual moments from her life. The whole comes together in an enlightening bio delivered in simple, easy to read language, which is distinguished by intermittent and rather special flashes of penetrating emotional acuity that occur when Jensen adds together the sum of the parts to reveal a concentrated whole.
May 2, 2022
Compared to most other subjects in the Writers on Writers series commissioned and published by Black Inc., the late novelist and poet Kate Jennings is less famous. Though her searing second novel, Moral Hazard (2002) deeply impressed me, I’ve yet to read her first, Snake (1996), which forms the spine of Erik Jensen’s moving biographical essay.
A portrait of rare honesty and intimacy, rich in quotes from Jennings and her brother, as well as lines from her fiction, this tribute to a boomer born in 1948 comes from a man young enough to be her grandson. In a culture fraught with gender and generational antagonisms, millennial Jensen offers a clear-eyed yet tender perspective on a hard-hitting pioneering feminist.
As journalists, Jennings and Jensen share concision and compression, and this essay has left me inspired to read more of the work of both. Jensen’s homage ranges across matters of craft, art, confronting the past, professional ethics vs. personal integrity etc., and this book holds much of value for writers who work closely from their own lives or those of others they know, whether in the form of fiction or nonfiction.
A portrait of rare honesty and intimacy, rich in quotes from Jennings and her brother, as well as lines from her fiction, this tribute to a boomer born in 1948 comes from a man young enough to be her grandson. In a culture fraught with gender and generational antagonisms, millennial Jensen offers a clear-eyed yet tender perspective on a hard-hitting pioneering feminist.
As journalists, Jennings and Jensen share concision and compression, and this essay has left me inspired to read more of the work of both. Jensen’s homage ranges across matters of craft, art, confronting the past, professional ethics vs. personal integrity etc., and this book holds much of value for writers who work closely from their own lives or those of others they know, whether in the form of fiction or nonfiction.
July 4, 2021
I loved this probably because I love anything that Kate Jennings wrote. Always have since forever and always will. His love and respect for her is wonderful. It is the sort of relationship I would have wanted to have with her
February 12, 2018
This is a stunning reflection in the power of words. I have not read the works of Kate Jennings before, but you can be sure I am going to go out and find them now.
January 15, 2025
Worthwhile reading about the background and motivations of a great Australian writer, Kate Jennings, from a friend and other great writer, Erik Jensen. 🖤
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews