That’d be Right by William McInnes is labeled as “a fairly true history of Australia”, a history viewed through the author’s eyes, with a particular emphasis on sport and politics. The author approaches Australian “history” through recollection, primarily his recollections of various sporting and political events, and what he was doing when those events occurred in Australia from the 1970s through to today. McInnes narrates a series of loosely related political and sporting stories. The only relationship or connection that these political and sporting stories have with each other is the author. He connects them via a chain of recollections, observation and anecdotes, that are at time humorous, to attempt to add color and interest to what many people would ordinarily be a rather thin gruel of politics and sport. For example, he recalls his family and friends’ activities during some of the events of his youth (the 1975 Australian Federal election), a famous cricket match (the 1977 Centenary Test), events he watched was in college in the 1980’s (political rallies and other sporting matches/races) through to political and sporting events and cultural events he attended as a spouse and father.
McInnes should be lauded for writing about sport and politics from the vantage point as an interested opinionated outsider, and the impact and influence of these events on people’s lives. Many books about sport and politics are written from the vantage point of the privileged insider (journalists), participants (politician or sportsman), or historians. McInnes’s departure is that he writes about these events that span a period of at least 35 years from his perspective, while liberally garnishing it with side stories and anecdotes, much in the same way that made his earlier book such an enjoyable read. The effect is to produce humorous insights, emotional events and sentimental recollections of people’s lives during momentous events in Australia’s recent past. Unfortunately, the attempt at a so-called “fairly true history of Australia” (which may just be a marketing ploy) comes across, at times, as half-baked. At times it reads as a quickly cobbled together collection of stories loosely woven around a theme of sport and politics in a way to cash in as a follow-up to his superior first book.
McInnes is a fine storyteller and should be applauded for memorializing his recollections; however, given that McInnes places himself in the center of events (and his recollection of events) in this book, it is surprising that we know so little of our author. He comes across as somewhat two dimensional. Apparently McInnes is a well regarded actor, and has had some success on both the stage and screen (both movie and television). This success is alluded to but never addressed; it’s as though it’s assumed or taken for granted that if you read William McInnes’s books, you know who he is, and of his acting career. Many readers do not, and may even wonder aloud when reading this book, who this author is and why his views are important enough to read, if at all? Maybe it’s modesty that keeps McInnes from writing about his career achievements in his chosen profession. Or maybe it’s a wish for privacy, or a male preference to discuss manly things like politics and sport. It seems odd though that in a book about essentially about his recollections of major sporting and political events of the past 35 years that he fails to tell the reader about his rise from struggling acting student in Western Australia to established and accomplished stage, film and television actor.
Despite these minor quibbles, McInnes has written a fine book that should resonate with every lover of good, fresh stories based on the observations and conversations of ordinary suburban people. The only thing that this book lacks is the story of McInnes’s career. No doubt he could have enhanced this book with the details of how he became an expert in his chosen profession. No doubt it would be a story worth telling, and when told by McInnes, be entertaining and a useful guide as well as an account of lessons he learned in establishing himself in a most competitive profession. I suspect that he is leaving those stories for another book. Let’s hope he takes the time to writes it one, because if it is like this book, and his previous book, it would be a humorous and enjoyable read.
, may have been an attempt to say something like, “I hope that college students trying to decide what to do with their lives might read it and decide that its silly to phony it up, and abandon their passions or even their faint interest, to become financiers.” Lewis admits that his message in Liars Poker was mainly lost on his readers, and that most students read Liars Poker as a “how to" manual. One wonders, given his failure to get his message across in Liar’s Poker, whether The Big Short will be read as a "how to" manual for aspiring contrarian hedge fund managers, rather than a vindication of Lewis’s views that the boom era of high finance (and its associated excess and insanity) is over. Like a dog returning to its own vomit, Lewis covers the same fertile ground in The Big Short that he covered in Liar’s Poker, and in some instances the same people he used to work with. I wonder if the sins of Liar's Poker are being repeated on a larger scale in The Big Short (except with much larger sums of money). I wonder whether the bright kid from Ohio State who reads The Big Short will be encouraged to become, say, an oceanographer and spurn the offer from Goldman Sachs and set out to sea. It would take an exceptional young person to reject such temptation. When given a choice between a bucket of money and ocean spray in the face, most young people would chose the bucket of money. But our scorn for the choices made by young college graduates could equally be made against successful authors. Lewis is free to write about anything he wants. He has written about the grubby “low-art” of finance, as well as comparatively more noble and uplifting subjects in Moneyball and The Blind Side. Perhaps Lewis will return to sharing the uplifting stories he is clearly capable of writing, and avoid the temptation to return to the field of finance, which, according to his past experience, seems to encourage bright young kids from Ohio State to go to work at Goldman Sachs. 