Reviews

With the rise and rise of sport as the pre-eminent cultural icon common to everyone through the medium of television, it was refreshing to read about the early days of cricket and football in the Australian colonies. The growth of sport last century accompanied the rise of wealth and the increase in leisure time. The Call's narrator visits sacred turf, breathes the essences left there by previous generations and goes looking for the champions who made cricket and football part of the Australian psyche. Included is some land grabbing and the murdering of Aborigines; a black cricket team that is trained up and sent to England; and some very funny articles and letters from the local press about the way the game is played. The book is short, concise and a little confusing but this may be Flanagan's way. He is without doubt one of the best social journalists in Australia; he knows so many facts that he can't leave anything out, and although this book is listed as fiction, it reads like a long collection of newspaper columns. Clive Tilsley is owner-manager of Fullers Bookshop, Hobart. C. 1998 Thorpe-Bowker and contributors