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invocation of pastoral near the beginning of thebook as the men build a tower for the bomb inthe desert heat:The tower was like a living thing. It was partlythat, in the absence of trees, crows and galahsperched on its steel webbing. Rabbitscrouched in burrows at its four feet. Giventhat the country, the ground itself, was sodried out and lifeless, there was a surprisingnumber of birds.This is followed by one of the book's raredescriptions of some actual effects of the blast:Later, when there was nothing left of thetower, Graham saw hundreds of [birds ] dead,burnt or tom apart, and rabbits who'dsurvived the blast hopping around with theirjaws eaten away ... (p.6)Immediately after this test, the men go slightlymad with relief, excitement and a sense of guilt(pp. 61-3). The rest of the book is an explorationof precisely what has occurred in the blast andwhat it means to be involved - howeverindirectly - in such an act. And as Australiaemerges from the Menzies years of spuriouscertainties and finds itself in the messy, confusingperiod of the Vietnam war and beyond, it beginsto confront the notion of responsibility for itsown actions, and to mourn those who have beensacrificed to a series of unreliable symbolicfathers. As Deborah gradually drags herself outof a dependent, child-like role of 1950s housewifeto attend university and learn something aboutfeminism, so Graham educates himself toconfront his own actions and those of his malementors. It is a painful process which nearlydrives them apart, and the book ends withGraham's return to Maralinga to continue hisinvestigations and to mourn his friend Foley,dead from radiation-induced cancer.Here, he writes a new kind of text on the land'ssurface. Whereas during the tests he wasrequired to map out a huge square grid andmeasure areas of radiation, unwittinglycontributing to fictions about safety (as much ofthe worst radiation fell beyond the grid area andtherefore did not officially exist), now he drawsa modest circle in the sand and enacts a brief,helpless ceremony there in memory of his friend.Maralinga, My Love raises difficult andtimely questions about the relationships betweenpower and gender identity and their effects uponindividuals, their society and their landscape. Itis a book to read many times for its thoughtfulexploration of the complex connections betweenpsychoanalysis and politics in modernAustralian history, for its tightly controlled angerand for its superbly understated style.Trudi TatePeter Kocan, Flies of a Summer, Angus &Robertson, 1988, $17.95.Ken Methold's satirically entertainingoutburst at the 1989 Sydney Writers andReaders Festival seems to have set a thylacineamong the Australian literary rosellas. Claimingto be in possession of a telepathic letter from acorrespondent in Mt Isa, Methold took to taskthe Australian Literature Board and the innercircle of the Sydney writing establishment.Using arguments that are about as extinct asAustralia's marsupial pseudo-tiger, Methold's"correspondent" fulminated against the selfcongratulatoryclosed coteries of Balmainwriters and critics, and the second-rate natureof Australian writing that is "not even publishedoverseas". At these observations, even theusually good-natured and scrupulously-urbaneDon Anderson, for example, flew into the air asaflutter and irate as Bill Collins defending aparticularly awful movie, demanding thatMethold name names, and "put up or shut up".There is a suspicion that Methold may havetouched a few raw nerves.It is, nevertheless, disturbing to have suchmythic concepts as "second-rateness" and thecriterion of "greatness" as something that isfound only "overseas" (Baffin Island, perhaps?)resurfacing, as if overseas literary circles weresomehow more "objective" and less selfinterestedthan Australia's own.This brings me to the discussion of a book thatmust surely be un-great. To my knowledge, PeterKocan's Flies of a Summer has yet to bepublished, or even have its existenceacknowledged, on Baffin Island. Is it thus"second rate"? Perhaps. But it may be moreuseful to observe that Flies of a Summer failsto identify its target audience, falling betweengeneric stools, and could do with furtherresearch and development.112WESTERLY, No.2, JUNE, 1989