Anthony Sharwood set out to investigate how Australia’s highest peak comes to be named after an eighteenth century freedom fighter and military engineer, Taddeusz Koszciuscko.

The result is an unorthodox hybrid he describes as a travelography. The result is much more than a portrait of a remarkable figure of enlightenment and progressive ideals, whose influence was felt from his native Poland to America, where his will was a vexed issue for his friend Thomas Jefferson.

Anthony Sharwood set out to investigate how Australia&rsquo;s highest peak comes to be named after an eighteenth century freedom fighter and military engineer, Taddeusz Koszciuscko.
The result is an unorthodox hybrid he describes as a travelography. The result is much more than a portrait of a remarkable figure of enlightenment and progressive ideals, whose influence was felt from his native Poland to America, where his will was a vexed issue for his friend Thomas Jefferson.

What is the secret to writing a really juicy biography? Author Caroline Baum interviews seasoned players and persistent newcomers who share their experience of navigating sensitive territory in the search for the real story behind a person’s life. Whether they are writing about the famous or the forgotten, whether their version of events is authorised or
unauthorised, biography is a high-stakes quest full of twists and turns.

What is the secret to writing a really juicy biography? Author Caroline Baum interviews seasoned players and persistent newcomers who share their experience of navigating sensitive territory in the search for the real story behind a person&rsquo;s life. Whether they are writing about the famous or the forgotten, whether their version of events is authorised or unauthorised, biography is a high-stakes quest full of twists and turns.

Life Sentences Podcast

What is the secret to writing a really juicy biography? Author Caroline Baum interviews seasoned players and persistent newcomers who share their experience of navigating sensitive territory in the search for the real story behind a person’s life. Whether they are writing about the famous or the forgotten, whether their version of events is authorised or unauthorised, biography is a high-stakes quest full of twists and turns.

What is the secret to writing a really juicy biography? Author Caroline Baum interviews seasoned players and persistent newcomers who share their experience of navigating sensitive territory in the search for the real story behind a person&rsquo;s life. Whether they are writing about the famous or the forgotten, whether their version of events is authorised or unauthorised, biography is a high-stakes quest full of twists and turns.

Life Sentences

Pole Position

In 2024 a story appeared in the Toronto Star by Deborah Dundas that set the world of biography on fire. At the centre of it was Alice Munro’s biographer Robert Thacker, who has devoted thirty years of his life as an academic to a close archival study of Alice Munro’s work.

 

It was revealed that Thacker had known for two decades that Alice’s daughter Andrea had been sexually molested by her stepfather Gerald Fremlin. When Andrea approached Thacker to ask him to make revisions to the manuscript of his book, in the light of this information, it was just at the point when the manuscript was complete and about to be printed, and he declined. He declined again when a revised edition of the book appeared several years later. He has always maintained that as an archival scholar, he had no interest in personal family dynamics and in the psychological aspects of Alice’s oeuvre.

 

Gerald Fremlin pled guilt to a charge of indecent assault and served a suspended sentence with two years probation. Alice Munro chose to remain with Fremlin rather than support her daughter.

 

In this episode Caroline Baum talks to Robert Thacker and explores the uncomfortable moral terrain of a biographer when presented with explosive material that they feel is beyond the scope of their particular focus and asks where does the biographer’s responsibility lies.

 

To read an in-depth account of Andrea Skinner’s experience and its repercussions for her, for Alice Munro and for Munro’s reading public, go to the excellent piece by New Yorker writer Rachel Aviv: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/12/30/alice-munros-passive-voice

 

There is also an essay by Anne Enright in her latest anthology Attention, on the Munro affair.

In 2024 a story appeared in the Toronto Star by Deborah Dundas that set the world of biography on fire. At the centre of it was Alice Munro&rsquo;s biographer Robert Thacker, who has devoted thirty years of his life as an academic to a close archival study of Alice Munro&rsquo;s work.
&nbsp;
It was revealed that Thacker had known for two decades that Alice&rsquo;s daughter Andrea had been sexually molested by her stepfather Gerald Fremlin. When Andrea approached Thacker to ask him to make revisions to the manuscript of his book, in the light of this information, it was just at the point when the manuscript was complete and about to be printed, and he declined. He declined again when a revised edition of the book appeared several years later. He has always maintained that as an archival scholar, he had no interest in personal family dynamics and in the psychological aspects of Alice&rsquo;s oeuvre.
&nbsp;
Gerald Fremlin pled guilt to a charge of indecent assault and served a suspended sentence with two years probation. Alice Munro chose to remain with Fremlin rather than support her daughter.
&nbsp;
In this episode Caroline Baum talks to Robert Thacker and explores the uncomfortable moral terrain of a biographer when presented with explosive material that they feel is beyond the scope of their particular focus and asks where does the biographer&rsquo;s responsibility lies.
&nbsp;
To read an in-depth account of Andrea Skinner&rsquo;s experience and its repercussions for her, for Alice Munro and for Munro&rsquo;s reading public, go to the excellent piece by New Yorker writer Rachel Aviv: <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/12/30/alice-munros-passive-voice">https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/12/30/alice-munros-passive-voice</a>
&nbsp;
There is also an essay by Anne Enright in her latest anthology&nbsp;Attention, on the Munro affair.

Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore

Dominic Amerena is a rising young Australian writer who has chosen a biographer as the central figure in his novel I Want Everything.

His ambitious, unnamed narrator recognises an older woman at the city baths one day as Brenda Shales, a writer who was famous for two incendiary novels before disappearing from public view. Recognising an opportunity, he works his way into her confidence and she agrees to tell him her story. He sees fame and fortune in his future. His girlfriend Ruth, also a writer, but who is already enjoying success, is not so sure.

Dominic Amerena discusses the influences and ideas underpinning his mischievous plot.

Dominic Amerena is a rising young Australian writer who has chosen a biographer as the central figure in his novel I Want Everything.
His ambitious, unnamed narrator recognises an older woman at the city baths one day as Brenda Shales, a writer who was famous for two incendiary novels before disappearing from public view. Recognising an opportunity, he works his way into her confidence and she agrees to tell him her story. He sees fame and fortune in his future. His girlfriend Ruth, also a writer, but who is already enjoying success, is not so sure.
Dominic Amerena discusses the influences and ideas underpinning his mischievous plot.

The Fictional Biographer

In a first for Life Sentences, host Caroline Baum welcomes a panel of four Australian biographers to discuss the biographies they have read and enjoyed recently.

-Ryan Butta chooses Anthony Sharwood’s hybrid travelogue biography of Polish freedom fighter Tadeusz Kosciusko and also mentions Didion and Babitz, by Lili Anolik, which compares the lives of two gifted writers on the LA scene of the Sixties.

-Susan Wyndham chooses Vicki Hastrich’s The Last Days of Zane Grey about the flamboyantly successful American big game fishing legend who was also a bestselling author with a complicated love life.

-Bernadette Brennan chooses Drusilla Modjeska’s important new group biography of European and American modernist female artists who have been largely overlooked or eclipsed by male partners.

-Anthony Sharwood chooses Ryan Butta’s The Bravest Scout at Gallipoli, about the mysterious Harry Freame, an Australian war hero who was half Japanese and raised in the code of the samurai.

Caroline makes reference to the new biography of former Governor General Quentin Bryce, and to reading the doorstop epic new biography of Mark Twain by Ron Chernow. 

In a first for Life Sentences, host Caroline Baum welcomes a panel of four Australian biographers to discuss the biographies they have read and enjoyed recently.
-Ryan Butta chooses Anthony Sharwood&rsquo;s hybrid travelogue biography of Polish freedom fighter Tadeusz Kosciusko and also mentions Didion and Babitz, by Lili Anolik, which compares the lives of two gifted writers on the LA scene of the Sixties.
-Susan Wyndham chooses Vicki Hastrich&rsquo;s The Last Days of Zane Grey about the flamboyantly successful American big game fishing legend who was also a bestselling author with a complicated love life.
-Bernadette Brennan chooses Drusilla Modjeska&rsquo;s important new group biography of European and American modernist female artists who have been largely overlooked or eclipsed by male partners.
-Anthony Sharwood chooses Ryan Butta&rsquo;s The Bravest Scout at Gallipoli, about the mysterious Harry Freame, an Australian war hero who was half Japanese and raised in the code of the samurai.
Caroline makes reference to the new biography of former Governor General Quentin Bryce, and to reading the doorstop epic new biography of Mark Twain by Ron Chernow.&nbsp;

Pole Position

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