Australia’s best-selling literary novelist, Christopher Koch (1932-2013), was a writer of the old school. If he was a musician we would call him “classically-trained”. His characters have size, shape, colour, mannerisms and move through a world recognisable as our own with their own ideas, goals, fears, strengths and weaknesses. They are neither disembodied brains nor unthinking caricatures. His work is exhaustive in ambition, with detailed plotting, realistic dialogue, intensive historical research and deep engagement with the irrational elements of human nature.
Averaging one novel every biblical seven years, Christopher was a painstaking writer committed to clarity. Undoubtedly the high point of his career was the adaptation of his third novel The Year of Living Dangerously into a film of the same name, directed by Peter Weir and starring Mel Gibson. The Year of Living Dangerously is one of only two films officially endorsed by Bonfire Books as possibly, possibly, worth the sacrifice of engaging with audiovisual media. (The other, also directed by Weir, is Picnic at Hanging Rock).
Koch wrote several other ambitious novels, a travelogue of Ireland, critical essays and poetry. He was a born Tasmanian and much of his work deals with the obsessions of ancestry common to that state, particularly the Irish political prisoner experience in Van Diemen’s Land. Koch twice won what used to be Australia’s most prestigious literary award, the Miles Franklin, alongside other honours and prizes. But he was delighted most by fan letters from people not normally these days associated with high literature: bricklayers, nurses, posties and the like, loved his thrilling, deep, high-minded stories that never condescended or deliberately obfuscated.
Since his death in 2013 Christopher’s star has fallen, which is not uncommon for writers immediately following their deaths. That he was aesthetically and temperamentally at odds with the rising neo-passeist Australian artistic establishment, refusing to be enlisted in their various extra-literary causes and critical of aimless and careless award-winning novels, did him no favours in this regard, but we are now pleased to take a small step in remedying his under appreciation with the publication of the first title in our new Bonfire Monograph Series. Landscape Written in His Face: People, Places Ideas in the Life and Work of Christopher Koch by Jamie Grant is the first extended study of Koch to be published since his death. Unlike most academic studies, Landscape Written In His Face is written from a perspective of love and admiration. Grant is a veteran Australian poet and publisher who was Koch’s collaborator, proofreader and above all, his friend. Each book Koch published is given its own chapter and alongside the textual analysis, are illustrative details of the triumphs and foibles of Koch himself and a cast of supporting characters, including Les Murray, Robert Gray, Geoffrey Lehmann, Grant himself and a host of publishers, agents, critics and readers. Landscape Written in His Face is the perfect introduction to Koch for those who have not read him, a deeper look for those who have and a record of an Australian publishing milieu that is sadly fast fading from sight.
PUBLICATION DATE: May 7th
Tasmanian readers watch this space for an announcement regarding a launch event in Hobart in May.