Melbourne Circle: Walking, Memory and Loss

by Nick Gadd

Over two years, writer Nick Gadd and his wife Lynne circled the city of Melbourne on foot, starting at Williamstown and ending in Port Melbourne. Along the way they uncovered lost buildings, secret places and mysterious signs that told of forgotten stories and curious characters from the past. Soon after they completed the circle, Lynne passed away from cancer. Melbourne Circle is the story of their journey, a memoir, and a stunning meditation on personal loss.

‘What a gem this book is! Oddity, wonderment, weirdness: these splendid essays reveal a marvellous Melbourne most of us have never encountered before. This is a psychogeography dense with vernacular history, humane detail, and from beneath the shadow of grief, love.’ –­ Gail Jones, author of Five Bells and The Death of Noah Glass

Genres: Nonfiction

190 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2020

About the author

Nick Gadd's first novel Ghostlines won a Victorian Premier's Literary Award and a Ned Kelly Award. His second, Death of a Typographer, was shortlisted for a Ned Kelly Award in 2020 and was described as "clever, stylish and very funny" (The Age/Sydney Morning Herald). His latest book, a work of non-fiction, is Melbourne Circle: Walking, Memory and Loss. His essays have been published in Meanjin, Kill Your Darlings, and Griffith Review among others. He lives in the western suburbs of Melbourne and his interests include psychogeography, typography and urban wandering.

Reviews

[Rania T · Rating 5 out of 5]

I followed Nick Gadd's blog which is what this book started off as. I have learnt so much about the city that I grew up in and the stories in this book about a Melbourne that is somehow lost through the page of time, but whose remnants remain within if you look close enough. Like the author says, the more we learn about a place we wander through, the stronger our connection to it. A great read.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

i adored this book. It is a very sad book, as clearly it is a love letter to a dearly departed life companion (and I have read it in the aftermath of my cousin's death). But it is a wonderful contribution to psychogeography, and the literature of sorrow, more in the wide eye, whimsical version of Robert Macfarlane than the snarl of Iain Sinclair, or the smug cleverness of Will Self.

It is wonderfully written, engages with each of the short forays through Melbourne's suburbs. Looking above the eyeline has never been so important, and those ghost signs take us back to a time long gone. Bravo.

[Itamar Livne · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful book that will get you crying and walking, sometimes at the same time. Seriously I have ran into several poles.
(Seriously it's great, read it)

[Hugh Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

Something lovely about this very personal story by Yarraville author Nick Gadd. A year after his wife’s death, Nick relives the walks they took around Melbourne, when they uncovered the secrets behind peeling paint and unusual names. Gently and carefully written, this book never becomes mawkish despite the obvious melancholy.

[Kerri Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

An extraordinary journey in my own hometown. Nick and his wife draw a circle around Melbourne CBD then set out on a walking tour (pyschojogging) to discover the history and secrets of these suburbs. We learn about the bomb factory; quacks who might have been doctors; and a fascinating directory put together by Sands & McDougall that help unlock some of the long-held mysteries of marvellous Melbourne. Drawing it all together are Nick's poignant memories of his wife and their love story shines through loud and clear.

[Lee Kofman · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautiful, quirky exploration of 'ghost Melbourne', the city's past that still lurks in its present. I just wanted the balance between the history of the place and the grief history of the author to shift a little, with a bit more of the latter and a little less of the former. But in either case, this book is a gem.

[Ben Shaw · Rating 5 out of 5]

Damn this is a surprisingly emotional, poignant and lyrical book. There's a lot of meditation on loss and mortality (as the author's wife died after it was researched but before it was completed), as well as some discussion of how change and impermanence and tenacity manifest in Melbourne suburbia.

Nick Gadd and his wife Lynne had lived in Yarraville for over 20 years when Nick decided to explore the city, truly and deeply. So Nick and Lynne explore Melbourne together, finding the most intimate and haunting places out there - ghost signs, architectural oddities, forgotten statues, supermarkets on blocks with a overflowing history now forgotten. It's so easy to lose your sense of time and place in such an incomprehensively vast entity as the Melbournian metropolis, to retreat into the self and be ruled by a reflexive egotism. This book is almost an antidote to that. It's about gaining an awareness of the rich, untold history of Melbourne that is so easily forgotten in the daily grind, uncovering the "lost and derelict things: the romantic, the neglected, the weird" that "thousands of people drive past...every day" without understanding the stories they tell. It's beautiful and romantic and deeply affecting. Sure, these things are "pretty ordinary, but so is most history". And I think the fact that these things that Nick and Lynne stumble across are so mundane, so ordinary, incidental artefacts and serendipitous vestiges of forgotten times, is what makes the book all the more intimate. There's nothing touristy about the locations and landmarks identified in the book. Hence, they are only truly seen and understood by a select few people (the reader's, and few others with a very niche and historical knowledge). That makes it more exclusive, more personal and, to me, more exciting and engaging. I'd much rather see secret, sequestered parts of a city that tell stories and have history, than the glamorous, cliche and deliberate facade most cities promote for themselves.

Then, in addition to this beautifully layered depiction of the quotidian, mundane, derelict and personal aspects of Melbournian history, there is also a lot of discussion of grief. As mentioned previously, Nick and Lynne went on all these walks together. Then Lynne died of cancer. This book, as well as a tour guide of sorts, is a memoir for Lynne, recollecting her life with Nick and pondering her absence. It is so intimate to read not just because the inevitably intimacy of the sequestered locations and stories contained within them, but also because the abundance of second person pronouns referring to Lynne . "You always saw them before I did", "you loved this area", "It was you who showed me...". Nick is addressing his wife like she is still here and it is so personal and emotional it honestly made me quite upset. And the metaphors throughout the book, of ghost signs and street art representing the fugacity and finite nature of love, poignantly connect the urban exploring to the meditative grief. Of a mural painted behind the Grand Theatre building in Footscray depicting a man reaching for a woman flying away, Nick has to say "Most art tries to stop time, but Baby Guerilla's pieces are transient. As the days and years pass, the paper peels away and the figures dissolve until eventually nothing is left - a metaphor for the passing of love, or the temporary nature of everything. One way or another, the people we love disappear. There is nothing he can do: she is slipping away, and she will always be out of reach". However, there is something Nick can do to try hold on to his wife a little longer: "we make our own ways of remembering...maybe this book is mine".

Ghost signs are a recurring motif in the book. They are signs that tell of business, people and places that no longer exist. Gadd writes "I say they are a symbol of mortality, reminding us that everything solid is bound to disappear. You say no, it represents survival...ghosts signs are living paradoxes, presences that point to absences...should we think of them as the city's memories and dreams, its nightmares and desires?...we see ghosts everywhere". Although they are essentially ordinary - signs denoting products businesses, people who no longer exist - there is a certsin patina of romance associated with the aged ghost sign and the enigma behind it. Later, Nick writes about books that his wife loved that still adorn his house "these echoes of the past call to me across time", and, out of context, you cannot tell whether he is talking about his wife's belongings or Melbourne's ghost signs. Nick translates his grief into sonder, uses the city's decay and growth to reflect his emotional turmoil.

"The desire to hold on is profound, whether its by painting a name, erecting a statue, or collecting stone tablets. I try to do it with words...But it's an unachievable goal. Even statues crumble, paintings fade, ghost signs weather to blank wall, as will the poignant mural on the Grand Theatre in Footscray. The man reaches out to grab his lover who is slipping away, but she is always just out of reach, and in time they will both melt into nothingness"

[Lynda · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love social history, so this book was literally right up my alley. From when I was a tiny child, I too have been fascinated by the gorgeous painted, fading advertisements on brick walls - like Robur tea - and the hidden stories and histories of houses, buildings, roads and local areas - and the people who inhabited them. Nicholas Gadd writes succinctly and poignantly about the local Melbourne walks that he and beloved wife Lynne Carolan take in order to discover the hidden histories of various Melbourne suburbs. Early on, we discover that Lynne does not survive a battle with cancer, and that this book is a very moving tribute to their shared life and love. Nicholas has skilfully weaved Lynne's voice and thoughts as a counter-point to his own thoughts and reflections. Plus, he's been able to raise interest and awareness through his blog, so that some mysteries have been solved by others - Dr King being a case in point! Finally, this resonates: 'It's the threads across time that we have grasped. The stories we've uncovered have taken us into the lives of others, and somehow they have enlarged us.' p180

[Xenia Girdler · Rating 5 out of 5]

For all those walkers, psychogeographers and lovers of landscape this book is a treat. Beautifully written Gadd explores our sense of place and relationship through the inner Melbourne city-suburban-scape. The walks and his relationship with his partner are described in rich, simple awe. I cannot wait to revisit many of my favourite streets and re-read this book again soon.

[Loki · Rating 5 out of 5]

Obviously, I am always a sucker for anyone sharing their love of this city I love. Even so, this book, half psychogeoraphy, half autobiography, half history (it's more than the sum of its parts), is a delight. I only wish I'd read it sooner.

[Stewart Monckton · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderfully observant - but also sad - book about what you can learn from walking. And how places and memory intersect.

Essential reading for Melburnians. SM

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful, sad, nostalgic.

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lovely read that intertwines a personal history with the history of the city. It's sad at times but it also has encouraged me to go out and see some of the things mentioned in the book for myself.

[Bethany · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disappointing.

[Jennie O'bryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating peek into Melbourne’s past and a beautiful tribute to the writer’s partner.

[Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a deep investigation with stunning pathos, though it could be more animated! The book is brought to life by its recurring characters, and familiar locations. The most touching aspect is the personal reflections: these meditations could easily be so much longer. Give us more, it's really fun to read this book!