This week on The ABR Podcast, Lucy Sussex reviews The Stained Man by Patrick Mullins, a biography of the first Labor Lord Mayor of Sydney, Richard Meagher. Mullins’s book is a ‘genuinely riveting and fascinating’ account of Meagher’s ‘mania for restitution’ following his scandalous errors of judgement as a prominent lawyer. Disbarred after his unethical defence of George Dean, a ferryman accused of poisoning his wife, Meagher sought a second career under the lights of the political stage. Meagher was a ‘rogue’ who ‘loved that drug’ of celebrity, Sussex writes.

Lucy Sussex is a lecturer at La Trobe University who has both written and edited several anthologies of short fiction. She is the author of Outrageous Fortunes: The adventures of Mary Fortune, crime-writer, and her criminal son George, published in 2025.

‘The lie and the law: The biography of a rogue’ by Lucy Sussex is published in the July issue of ABR.

This week on&nbsp;The ABR Podcast, Lucy Sussex reviews The Stained Man by Patrick Mullins, a biography of the first Labor Lord Mayor of Sydney, Richard Meagher. Mullins&rsquo;s book is a &lsquo;genuinely riveting and fascinating&rsquo; account of Meagher&rsquo;s &lsquo;mania for restitution&rsquo; following his scandalous errors of judgement as a prominent lawyer. Disbarred after his unethical defence of George Dean, a ferryman accused of poisoning his wife, Meagher sought a second career under the lights of the political stage. Meagher was a &lsquo;rogue&rsquo; who &lsquo;loved that drug&rsquo; of celebrity, Sussex writes.
Lucy Sussex is a lecturer at La Trobe University who has both written and edited several anthologies of short fiction. She is the author of Outrageous Fortunes: The adventures of Mary Fortune, crime-writer, and her criminal son George, published in 2025.
&lsquo;The lie and the law: The biography of a rogue&rsquo; by Lucy Sussex is published in the July issue of&nbsp;ABR.

Welcome to The ABR Podcast, produced by Australian Book Review. Released every Thursday, The ABR Podcast features a range of literary highlights, such as reviews, poetry, fiction, interviews, and commentary. Subscribe on iTunes, Google, or Spotify Podcasts, or whichever app you use to listen to your favourite podcasts.

For more information about ABR, visit our website, www.australianbookreview.com.au

Welcome to The ABR Podcast, produced by Australian Book Review. Released every Thursday, The ABR Podcast features a range of literary highlights, such as reviews, poetry, fiction, interviews, and commentary. Subscribe on iTunes, Google, or Spotify Podcasts, or whichever app you use to listen to your favourite podcasts.
For more information about&nbsp;ABR, visit our website, <a href="http://www.australianbookreview.com.au">www.australianbookreview.com.au</a>

Welcome to The ABR Podcast, produced by Australian Book Review. Released every Thursday, The ABR Podcast features a range of literary highlights, such as reviews, poetry, fiction, interviews, and commentary. Subscribe on iTunes, Google, or Spotify Podcasts, or whichever app you use to listen to your favourite podcasts.

The ABR Podcast

ABR is delighted to introduce its brand-new podcast, The ABR Podcast.

Released fortnightly every Wednesday, The ABR Podcast will feature a range of literary highlights, such as reviews, poetry, fiction, interviews, and commentary. Subscribe on the iTunes, Google, or Spotify Podcasts, or whichever app you use to listen to your favourite podcasts.

ABR&nbsp;is delighted to introduce its brand-new podcast,&nbsp;The ABR Podcast.
Released fortnightly every Wednesday,&nbsp;The ABR Podcast&nbsp;will feature a range of literary highlights, such as reviews, poetry, fiction, interviews, and commentary. Subscribe on the iTunes, Google, or Spotify Podcasts, or whichever app you use to listen to your favourite podcasts.

This week on The ABR Podcast, Lucy Sussex reviews The Stained Man by Patrick Mullins, a biography of the first Labor Lord Mayor of Sydney, Richard Meagher. Mullins’s book is a ‘genuinely riveting and fascinating’ account of Meagher’s ‘mania for restitution’ following his scandalous errors of judgement as a prominent lawyer. Disbarred after his unethical defence of George Dean, a ferryman accused of poisoning his wife, Meagher sought a second career under the lights of the political stage. Meagher was a ‘rogue’ who ‘loved that drug’ of celebrity, Sussex writes. Lucy Sussex is a lecturer at La Trobe University who has both written and edited several anthologies of short fiction. She is the author of Outrageous Fortunes: The adventures of Mary Fortune, crime-writer, and her criminal son George, published in 2025. Here is Lucy Sussex with ‘The lie and the law: The biography of a rogue’, published in the July issue of ABR.

‘The lie and the law: The biography of a rogue’ by Lucy Sussex

This week on The ABR Podcast, Virginia Haussegger reviews Women Who Win by Antoinette Lattouf, a book that is not about ‘the anatomy of winning’, but rather about ‘the impact of fighting’. Using her well-known legal case against the ABC as a narrative framework, Lattouf unfolds the stories of over forty ‘unyielding, unbowed’ women who dared to take on ‘powerful institutions’ and ‘systems of exclusion’. The result, Haussegger writes, is a gritty exploration of the ‘drama, doubt, and pain associated with winning’.

Virginia Haussegger is an award-winning television journalist, writer, and commentator, whose media career spans thirty years. She is Deputy Chair of the media think-tank PIJI, the Public Interest Journalism Initiative, and she hosts BroadTalk, a podcast about women, power, and the wayward world.

‘“What I wanted to signal”: Women navigating the media’ by Virginia Haussegger is published in the August issue of ABR.

This week on The ABR Podcast, Virginia Haussegger reviews Women Who Win by Antoinette Lattouf, a book that is not about &lsquo;the anatomy of winning&rsquo;, but rather about &lsquo;the impact of fighting&rsquo;. Using her well-known legal case against the ABC as a narrative framework, Lattouf unfolds the stories of over forty &lsquo;unyielding, unbowed&rsquo; women who dared to take on &lsquo;powerful institutions&rsquo; and &lsquo;systems of exclusion&rsquo;. The result, Haussegger writes, is a gritty exploration of the &lsquo;drama, doubt, and pain associated with winning&rsquo;.
Virginia Haussegger is an award-winning television journalist, writer, and commentator, whose media career spans thirty years. She is Deputy Chair of the media think-tank PIJI, the Public Interest Journalism Initiative, and she hosts&nbsp;BroadTalk, a podcast about women, power, and the wayward world.
&lsquo;&ldquo;What I wanted to signal&rdquo;: Women navigating the media&rsquo; by Virginia Haussegger is published in the August issue of&nbsp;ABR.

This week on The ABR Podcast, Virginia Haussegger reviews Women Who Win by Antoinette Lattouf, a book that is not about ‘the anatomy of winning’, but rather about ‘the impact of fighting’. Using her well-known legal case against the ABC as a narrative framework, Lattouf unfolds the stories of over forty ‘unyielding, unbowed’ women who dared to take on ‘powerful institutions’ and ‘systems of exclusion’. The result, Haussegger writes, is a gritty exploration of the ‘drama, doubt, and pain associated with winning’.  Virginia Haussegger is an award-winning television journalist, writer, and commentator, whose media career spans thirty years. She is Deputy Chair of the media think-tank PIJI, the Public Interest Journalism Initiative, and she hosts BroadTalk, a podcast about women, power, and the wayward world. ‘“What I wanted to signal”: Women navigating the media’ by Virginia Haussegger is published in the August issue of ABR.

‘“What I wanted to signal”: Women navigating the media’ by Virginia Haussegger

This week on The ABR Podcast, we feature ‘Backflip’ by New Zealand author Sam Keenan, which placed second in the 2026 ABR Elizabeth Jolley Short Story Prize. Set in a small New Zealand town in the 1980s, ‘Backflip’ tells the story of a young girl’s disappearance and the community’s attempt to smooth over this tragedy. This year’s judges called ‘Backflip’ a ‘remarkable feat of compression: a coming-of-age story told from a teenage girl’s perspective that is also a tender portrait of an era and a town in the grip of a traumatic disturbance’.

Sam Keenan lives in Aotearoa, New Zealand. She won the inaugural Sargeson Prize in 2019 and came second in the Sunday Star-Times short story competition in 2017. Her short stories have been published in Landfall, Sunday Star-Times, and the anthology Middle Distance (2021). Her work often focuses on the social history of Aotearoa.

‘Backflip’ by Sam Keenan is published in the August issue of ABR.

This week on The ABR Podcast, we feature &lsquo;Backflip&rsquo; by New Zealand author Sam Keenan, which placed second in the 2026 ABR Elizabeth Jolley Short Story Prize. Set in a small New Zealand town in the 1980s, &lsquo;Backflip&rsquo; tells the story of a young girl&rsquo;s disappearance and the community&rsquo;s attempt to smooth over this tragedy. This year&rsquo;s judges called &lsquo;Backflip&rsquo; a &lsquo;remarkable feat of compression: a coming-of-age story told from a teenage girl&rsquo;s perspective that is also a tender portrait of an era and a town in the grip of a traumatic disturbance&rsquo;.
Sam Keenan&nbsp;lives in Aotearoa, New Zealand. She won the inaugural&nbsp;Sargeson Prize in 2019 and came second in the&nbsp;Sunday Star-Times&nbsp;short story competition in 2017. Her short stories have been published in&nbsp;Landfall,&nbsp;Sunday Star-Times, and the anthology&nbsp;Middle Distance&nbsp;(2021). Her work often focuses on the social history of Aotearoa.
&lsquo;Backflip&rsquo; by Sam Keenan is published in the August issue of&nbsp;ABR.

This week on The ABR Podcast, we feature ‘Backflip’ by New Zealand writer Sam Keenan, which placed second in the 2026 ABR Elizabeth Jolley Short Story Prize. Set in a small New Zealand town in the 1980s, ‘Backflip’ tells the story of a young girl’s disappearance and the community’s attempt to smooth over this tragedy. This year’s judges called ‘Backflip’ a ‘remarkable feat of compression: a coming-of-age story told from a teenage girl’s perspective that is also a tender portrait of an era and a town in the grip of a traumatic disturbance’.  Sam Keenan lives in Aotearoa, New Zealand. She won the inaugural Sargeson Prize in 2019 and came second in the Sunday Star-Times short story competition in 2017. Her short stories have been published in Landfall, Sunday Star-Times, and the anthology Middle Distance (2021). Her work often focuses on the social history of Aotearoa.  ‘Backflip’ by Sam Keenan is published in the August issue of ABR.

‘Backflip’ by Sam Keenan

This week, on The ABR Podcast, we feature WA Senator Varun Ghosh’s essay, ‘Literary critic as democratic role model’, which discusses the relationship between literary criticism and politics. Ghosh argues that literary critique is crucial to the health of democracy. ‘A strong critical culture is protective of democracy’, he asserts. While there are limits to the comparison between literary critics and democratic representatives,’ Ghosh writes, ‘the habits that underpin good criticism … are also indispensable to good policymaking’.

Varun Ghosh is a Senator for Western Australia and previously a lawyer from Perth. He received degrees in Arts and Law from the University of Western Australia and was a Commonwealth Scholar in Law at the University of Cambridge.

‘Literary critic as democratic role model’ is published in the August issue of ABR.

This week, on The ABR Podcast, we feature WA Senator Varun Ghosh&rsquo;s essay, &lsquo;Literary critic as democratic role model&rsquo;, which discusses the relationship between literary criticism and politics. Ghosh argues that literary critique is crucial to the health of democracy. &lsquo;A strong critical culture is protective of democracy&rsquo;, he asserts. While there are limits to the comparison between literary critics and democratic representatives,&rsquo; Ghosh writes, &lsquo;the habits that underpin good criticism &hellip; are also indispensable to good policymaking&rsquo;.
Varun Ghosh is a Senator for Western Australia and previously a lawyer from Perth. He received degrees in Arts and Law from the University of Western Australia and was a Commonwealth Scholar in Law at the University of Cambridge.
&lsquo;Literary critic as democratic role model&rsquo; is published in the August issue of ABR.

This week, on The ABR Podcast, we feature WA Senator Varun Ghosh’s essay, ‘Literary critic as democratic role model’, which discusses the relationship between literary criticism and politics. Ghosh argues that literary critique is crucial to the health of democracy. ‘A strong critical culture is protective of democracy’, he asserts. While there are limits to the comparison between literary critics and democratic representatives,’ Ghosh writes, ‘the habits that underpin good criticism … are also indispensable to good policymaking’. Varun Ghosh is a Senator for Western Australia and previously a lawyer from Perth. He received degrees in Arts and Law from the University of Western Australia and was a Commonwealth Scholar in Law at the University of Cambridge. Here is Varun Ghosh with ‘Literary critic as democratic role model’, published in the August issue of ABR.

‘The lie and the law: The biography of a rogue’ by Lucy Sussex

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