Jon Cleary

One of the most enjoyable afternoons in my life was spent interviewing the Australian author Jon Cleary for the National Film and Sound Archive. He was a wonderful raconteur and very good company; I think it helped I’d also done my research (his papers were at the Mitchell Library) so I could ask him decent questions. I remember he had a spectacular view of Sydney harbour from his Kirribilli house – he would write with his back to it. He also wore sunglasses because he’d had trouble with one of his eyes – they were bleeding.

I have to admit that at that stage I’d only read one of Cleary’s novels, The High Commissioner, a very enjoyable thriller which was poorly adapted for the screen in 1968. The meeting prompted me to read a number of his books.

Cleary says he wrote his first novel, You Can’t See Around Corners, based on instinct. And you can tell – it feels like it was written without planning (that’s not a criticism, just an observation). The lead character is a bit of a dead beat – he’s never going to get better, although he seems to have no problem with women. It is a bit of a shock when he turns murderer, especially of such a nice girl. I didn’t quite believe that, actually. But the atmosphere of wartime Sydney is wonderfully evoked. The 1969 adaptation looks dreadful – look at clips here - http://australianscreen.com.au/titles/you-cant-see-round-corners/clip2/

I remember reading his collection of small stories These Small Glories, but don’t remember much about them except that they dealt with the war. The next novel of his I read was The Long Shadow, a man on the run thriller – John Buchan in the Australian bush; it was workman like more than anything else although it did have a particularly good sequence where the hero is at a campfire with a tramp and both think the other one is a murderer.

The Sundowners was his next novel of note and it’s really good – a tale of a hopeless drifter who can’t settle down and his family. Cleary’s books often have pace because they are about people who move – the deserter in Corners, the man on the run in Shadow. Sundowners is about a man who can’t stop moving.

His next novel was the point at which I think Cleary sold out. This was highlighted by another writer, I can’t remember who, I think it was in the Australian Oxford Guide to Literature or something. Climate of Courage is an excellent war novel, reminiscent of the 20th Century Fox film In Love and War (which came later) – half the action is about soldiers on sure leave and their romantic entanglements, then the second half is the men on a disastrous patrol in New Guinea. There is some brilliant writing, and you’re going to yourself “but one of our heroes is going to die” – but the three heroes all live. Cleary couldn’t bring himself to kill them, and I think he crossed a line. Corners and Sundowners were inherently dark stories – the lead characters weren’t going to get better. Climate of Courage should have been the same – people you like die in war. It probably did wonders for his sales and sanity, but I think this is where Cleary decided to become a good commercial author rather than a great writer.

Back of Sunset is about a city doctor who works out bush as a Flying Doctor and was quite enjoyable. You could easily see how it could have been adapted for a movie in the style of say Doc Hollywood or the Crawfords TV series Flying Doctors. Noon from Thursday is about Australian colonial officers in New Guinea – the late father of a friend of mine is thanked in the introduction. Like many Cleary novels the bulks of the action involves a small group travelling across the country. The Pulse of Danger was like this – set on the Indian border (sometimes it seems Cleary took a trip, then wrote it up to claim it on tax). Ditto A Very Private War, about coast watchers, where the hero gets a chance to get revenge a bit too conveniently. High Road to China is an enjoyable adventure tale, very different to the film version, although I liked the film version.