Introduction

Amanda Lohrey

Since 1999 Black Inc. Has published an annual anthology of the best short fiction to be found among Australian writing in a given year, or at least the best to have surfaced into visibility. In doing so it has provided an ongoing revelation of the richness and variety that Australian writers bring to the genre of the short story, a form so loose and so generous that almost anything can be attempted within its porous borders. Few rules apply, but if I had to cite one it would be this: by the last line of the story it must have opened out into something larger, and possibly – though not necessarily – more complex than anything we might have imagined or foreseen at the beginning.

When I was a child, my mother would take me to an Easter magic show staged by one of the leading department stores of the day, and my favourite trick was the one where the magician poured seemingly random ingredients into his top hat: flour, milk, eggs in their shells, lolly wrappers, sawdust and talcum powder. Then he would utter the magic formula to produce – a perfectly baked cake. This remains for me analogous to how writers work; they throw a whole lot of items into a melting pot and hope to achieve some kind of alchemy whereby the disparate elements combine into a satisfying form. It’s hit or miss and even the best writers sometimes fail.

Whatever the eventual outcome, writers must begin by engaging the reader’s interest, and they do this by striving to establish a certain conviction of tone: ‘Listen to me, I know things, I have revelations to offer and I will deliver.’ Some writers aim at generating a sense of urgency, others for an effect of calm, measured authority. A writer’s style may be hectic or leisurely but, either way, conviction of tone is often an initial bluff; in the early drafts of a story writers are rarely in control of the process, and it’s as much a journey of discovery for them as it is for the reader. Writer and reader, both, are explorers in the realm of consciousness, with the writer as forward scout, riding back from the frontiers of meaning to offer clues as to the lie of the land.

No two stories in this collection are alike, but in all of them the writer is bringing news. We think we know about Picasso, but John A. Scott revolves the idea of ‘Picasso’ like a mirror ball, to reveal new facets. We hear the phrase ‘globalised citizen’ tossed around, but Jo Lennan (‘How Is Your Great Life?’) creates a detailed portrait of the deracinated state and the ungrounded cultural fluidity of the newly globalised young that is more affecting in its pathos than any official case study. Eleanor Limprecht (‘On Ice’) suggests another dimension to the ‘forgetting’ of dementia. Cate Kennedy (‘Puppet Show’) reinvents Bali. Gay Lynch (‘The Abduction of Ganymede’) complexifies the notion of the good angel and asks: can there ever be such a thing as a pure motive? Omar Musa writes the subtlest of portraits of political corruption (‘Supernova’).

While the stories in this collection vary greatly, what they do have in common is an element of danger. At the heart of all stories is a concealed threat, a latent danger that tests our perception of the world, along with our nerve. If there is nothing to fear then there is no reason to read on, but while fear is generative of story it is not enough in itself to create a satisfying reading experience. A story that is wholly paranoid in character cannot render truth, because experience is complex, shot through with light as well as burdened by darkness. The paranoid narrative seeks to exploit our fears for cheap effects (like so much crime-based television), but it leaves a hollow feeling, as nourishing as a cake made of sawdust and ashes. The writers in this collection appealed to me because, in so many different ways, they demonstrate that they have mastered the art of confronting darkness without becoming its captive. Their artistry is a form of enlightenment. Magicians all, they have arrived at their own version of the magic formula, and I like to think the reader will find no sawdust here.

Amanda Lohrey