Gerald Murnane Books

Inland is a work which gathers in emotional power as it moves across the grasslands of its narrator's imagination--from Szolnok County on the great plains of Hungary where a man writes in the library of his manor house, to the Institute of Prairie Studies in Tripp County, South Dakota, where the editor of the journal Hinterland receives his writing, to the narrator's own native district in Melbourne County, between Moonee Ponds and the Merri, where he recalls the constant displacements of his childhood. "No thing in the world is one thing," he declares; "some places are many more than one place." These overlapping worlds are bound by recurring motifs--fish pond, fig-tree, child-woman, the colours white, red and green--and by deep feelings of intimacy and betrayal, which are brought to full expression as the book moves to its close.

A masterful collection of essays from one of Australia's most searching and expert writers.

Exploring the enduring images in the author's mind, the narrative delves into a diverse range of memories and reflections, from childhood experiences to fantastical elements. Notable figures include Mandrake the Magician and a mysterious woman, alongside personal recollections like a cousin's dollhouse and a childhood incident with a bachelor uncle. The work reflects a profound inquiry into the nature of these vivid images, marking a significant return to fiction after a long hiatus.

"Brutal, comic, obscene, and crystalline, Stream System runs from the haunting Land Deal, which imagines the colonization of Australia and the ultimate vengeance of its indigenous people as a series of nested dreams; to Finger Web, which tells a quietly terrifying, fractal tale of the scars of war and the roots of misogyny; to The Interior of Gaaldine, which finds its anxious protagonist stranded beyond the limits of fiction itself."--Amazon.com.

In the first days of spring in his eighty-second year, Gerald Murnane--perhaps the greatest living writer of English prose--began a project that would round off his strange career as a novelist. He would read all of his books in turn and prepare a report on each. His original intention was to lodge the reports in two of his legendary filing cabinets: in the Chronological Archive, which documents his life as a whole, and the Literary Archive, which is devoted to everything he has written. As the reports grew, however, they themselves took on the form of a book, a book as beguiling and hallucinatory, in its way, as the works on which they were meant to report. These miniature memoirs or stories lead the reader through the capacious territory Murnane refers to as his mind: they dwell on the circumstances that gave rise to his writing, on images and associations, on Murnane's own theories of fiction, and then memories of a deeply personal kind. The final essay is, of course, on Last Letter to a Reader itself: it considers the elation and exhilaration that accompany the act of writing, and offers a moving finale to what must surely be Murnane's last work, as death approaches. "Help me, dear one," he writes, "to endure patiently my going back to my own sort of heaven."

Exploring the complexities of storytelling, this book offers a multifaceted reflection on its beauty and challenges. It delves into the ways narratives shape our understanding of the world, highlighting both the transformative power of tales and the potential dangers they pose. Through vivid imagery and insightful commentary, it invites readers to consider the impact of stories on personal and collective experiences, making it a thought-provoking read for anyone interested in the art of narrative.

A lonely child of unusual sensibility inherits his father's love of horse- racing and his mother's Catholicism in this evocative, semi-autobiographical novel.

I never met anyone whose interest in racing matched my own. Both on and off the course, so to speak, I’ve enjoyed the company of many a racing acquaintance…I’ve read books, or parts of books, by persons who might have come close to being true racing friends of mine if ever we had met. For most of my long life, however, my enjoyment of racing has been a solitary thing: something I could never wholly explain to anyone else.As a boy, Gerald Murnane became obsessed with horse racing. He had never ridden a horse, nor seen a race. Yet he was fascinated by photos of horse races in the Sporting Globe, and by the incantation of horses’ names in radio broadcasts of races. Murnane discovered in these races more than he could find in religion or philosophy: they were the gateway to a world of imagination.Gerald Murnane is like no other writer, and Something for the Pain is like no other Murnane book. In this unique and spellbinding memoir, he tells the story of his life through the lens of horse racing. It is candid, droll and moving—a treat for lovers of literature and of the turf.

Never before available to readers in the UK, these brilliant and idiosyncratic short stories stand alongside the fictions of Borges, Beckett and Nabokov.

This is the story of the families of the plains—obsessed with their land and history, their culture and mythology—and of the man who ventured into their world. First published in 1982, The Plains is a mesmerising work of startling originality. This handsome new hardback edition is introduced by Ben Lerner, author of the internationally acclaimed novels Leaving the Atocha Station and 10:04, and a work of criticism, The Hatred of Poetry.