Gossip makes the world go round, and we always want the stories of the gods. So biography prospers, and whatever's between its covers, the big one is always a glossy commodity, further upmarket than most fiction. The hype for this one was noisy and predictable: excerpts, interviews and even reviews focusing on homosexual love-lives, Patrick White's awful temper, and the detective-biographer's own gripping adventures getting hold of 2500 letters. A magazine cover shows the author, companion and dog arranged in a pastoral trio in the Fifties. Towards an Australian Bloomsbury? There has to be more going on. It's not enough to confirm the greatness of greatness; we want to know our business with the dead.

LRB 15 August 1991 | PDF Download