Landscape with Landscape

Australian author Murnane (Barley Patch) writes with self-effacing honesty in this intimate 1985 collection of his characteristically autobiographical stories. Each entry is narrated by an aspiring Melbourne writer. In “A Quieter Place than Clune,” he’s a teacher yearning to follow in the footsteps of the renowned writers who have influenced him: A.E. Housman, Günter Grass, and especially Thomas Hardy. Literary references run throughout, as in “Sipping the Essence,” a story of adolescent love and longing that acknowledges Murnane’s debt to Strindberg. “The Battle of Acosta Nu” finds Murnane’s alter ego traveling with his Paraguayan wife and their frail son from Melbourne to Paraguay, where he muses on the differences between the two cultures and yearns for home. “Charlie Alcock’s Cock” has a more mischievous flavor, albeit with sinister undertones, chronicling how the narrator’s “boy-cousin” who is obsessed with sex as a child grows up to become a priest. The preface, written in 2016, sheds light on what drives Murnane, who calls out a reviewer of the first edition for “invok[ing], of all things, the outworn Sydney versus Melbourne thing, he being the sophisticated Sydneysider, of course, and I being the upstart from Melbourne.” The author’s fans will find much to chew on. (Jan.)