The Lovemakers (single volume)
Shearsman Books, Bristol, UK. 2008
Complete edition of Books 1 and 2
ISBN 978-1-905700-96-7
Centred on Australian suburbia in the 60s, 70s and 80s The Lovemakers explores the inner and outer tensions of families, friendships and society whilst charting the sleaze, mayhem and humanity that go to make a nation’s life. Taking the triangle of Barb, her husband, Roger and her lover Neil for its emotional heart the work then explodes into the lives of Kevin the heroin czar, Stubbsy the entrepreneur, Gibbo the comedian and Sophie, Hannah and Carrie, three women each set on making her way in the world. Meanwhile, through a life and times consumed by melodrama and farce, money and nothing, ambles Kim Lacey: drug importer, merchant banker, a two-faced charmer forever on the approximate make.
BACK COVER QUOTES
‘With Wearne we get the combination of extremely imaginative writing on the largest possible scale in a style of absolute originality.’
Peter Craven
‘The Lovemakers can be read as an exciting story: it is also poetry on a grand scale.’
Peter Porter ‘Life, Love: Urban Yarns on a Grand Scale’ The Age 14 April 2001 p.6
‘Such is the sensitivity of Wearne’s portrayal of adolescence, in particular, that it doesn’t matter which Australian suburb you were brought up in, you are likely to find an important part of your own experience in this book.’ Ivor Indyck ‘Hear the burbs sing’ The Sydney Morning Herald 24 March 2001, p.5
REVIEWS
‘Money and nothing is the concluding half of Alan Wearne’s vast poetic narrative The Lovemakers. The first volume Saying all the great sexy things was quickly acknowledged as a masterpiece. It chronicled the smaller madnesses of growing up in the suburbs of Sydney and Melbourne. Money and nothing investigates the larger madnesses of the 80s: the entrepreneurs and the South-east Asian drug trade.
The complete Lovemakers seems to want to survey an entire generation, and its theme is addiction as a force that binds a society together while simultaneously tearing it apart. And addiction is explored in all its forms – love, sex, power and money.’ Martin Duwell ‘Friends in Low Places’The Sydney Morning Herald Weekend Edition, March 20-21 2004 p.10
‘The Lovemakers reclaims a space for a distinctly narrative poetic, able and willing to grapple at length with contemporary issues and morality. All that remains to complete this poet’s arduous journey is the embrace of Australian readers. Switch off your televisions for a moment, people.’ Mark Svensden ‘Soapie Kings’ The Courier Mail March 13, 2004 (p.6)
AVAILABLE:
Shearsman Books
ISBN 978-1-905700-96-7