Anne Chisholm
For those who are beginning to feel that the biography bandwagon is out of control, David Marr's superb book about Patrick White (Cape, £20) should be a reassurance. He has managed to explore the nature of an exceptionally difficult and complex man, illuminate his writing, inform us about Anglo-Australian attitudes, and remind us that originality and brilliance are seldom comfortable, all with humour and wisdom. Subject and author both showed courage — Marr could not be sure that White would allow the book to be published; and White, who died soon after it was finished, gambled on Marr's capacities — and the result is a rich, moving work.
The English novel with a knife hidden in its sleeve has rarely been better done than by Jane Gardam in The Queen of the Tambourine (Sinclair-Stevenson, £13.95). In middle-aged, middle-class suburbia love, death, obsession and madness are deftly and elegantly delineated.
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