Pardoe & Beyond and its sequels are Memoirs aspiring to literature's brevity and wit. A notable Booker Prize winner describes extracts as 'highly entertaining'.
I grew up to the sighs and murmurs of Pardoe Beach, Tasmania. The beauty of women and words entrance me still.
OUR HOUSE Where Granny says: "I l-o-a-t-h-e cats, and they know it. They always choose me to rub themselves against." Even if I disliked dogs I wouldn't say it. I loathe people who loathe cats. They always come and rub themselves against me.
Where a visitor says "I can take cats or leave them" I say "Leave them."
PARDOE Where kelp pompoms are thrashed by mermaid cheerleaders. Hold fast girls! Where beached kelp, scattered with mermaids' purses, lifts to seething sea-lice.
BATTERY POINT She is fourteen She has joy in her face She passes by him He is sixteen She is wonderful He does not speak...
CAMBODIA: Proverbs Don't sleep at night while you are on duty, don't talk a secret thing in the bed while she has a lover. Don't imitate the elephant while it exhausts its dung. The scholar is falling in the deep pitch of knowledge, causes the ignorants to heaven...