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.

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

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;

Best Biographies

Past biographies have always dismissed Pamela Harriman as a socialite who slept her way to the top, in a series of affairs and marriages that boosted her thirst for power.

 

But Sonia Purnell argues persuasively that Harriman was in fact one of the most significant diplomats of the 20th century and that her motives were always those of ensuring peace and the best possible outcomes for the UK, the US and the world. She deployed her charms and incredible power of seduction on everyone from Randolph Churchill to Gianni Agnelli, the Aga Khan, Ed Murrow, Bill Paley and Averell Harriman, moving from politics to the world of Broadway by marrying producer Leland Heyward and hosting a salon in Washington that became the epicentre of the world of intelligence and refinement. Even the Russians were not immune to her charms.

 

How did a minor British aristo with no formal education come to be so influential? Purnell’s juicy biography, Kingmaker, is a fascinating and deliciously gossipy but serious portrait of a bygone world of glamour and intrigue, high stakes secrets, scandalous love affairs and strategic partnerships in and out of the bedroom of one of the world’s most intriguing women.

Past biographies have always dismissed Pamela Harriman as a socialite who slept her way to the top, in a series of affairs and marriages that boosted her thirst for power.
&nbsp;
But Sonia Purnell argues persuasively that Harriman was in fact one of the most significant diplomats of the 20th century and that her motives were always those of ensuring peace and the best possible outcomes for the UK, the US and the world. She deployed her charms and incredible power of seduction on everyone from Randolph Churchill to Gianni Agnelli, the Aga Khan, Ed Murrow, Bill Paley and Averell Harriman, moving from politics to the world of Broadway by marrying producer Leland Heyward and hosting a salon in Washington that became the epicentre of the world of intelligence and refinement. Even the Russians were not immune to her charms.
&nbsp;
How did a minor British aristo with no formal education come to be so influential? Purnell&rsquo;s juicy biography, Kingmaker, is a fascinating and deliciously gossipy but serious portrait of a bygone world of glamour and intrigue, high stakes secrets, scandalous love affairs and strategic partnerships in and out of the bedroom of one of the world&rsquo;s most intriguing women.

The Fictional Biographer

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