Host City
David Owen Kelly, Puncher & Wattmann, $32.95

Set in Darlinghurst during the 1980s, Host City blends queer memoir and alternative history. It follows three young gay men, Kit, Ty and Johnny, as they come of age in the early years of the HIV/AIDS crisis, and it’s a welcome reminder, for readers of any sexual orientation, of the paranoia and persecution and the sheer scale of the suffering that galvanised gay and lesbian communities into action. For queer readers of a certain age, it’s a vivid time warp of a novel that will conjure the world of their youth. True, Host City doesn’t have quite the devastating testimonial power of Timothy Conigrave’s AIDS-era memoir Holding the Man – written as he was dying, in an act of literary martyrdom that leaves no heart unmoved – but the fictional elements are realised with a full-bloodedness and emotional delicacy reminiscent of Edmund White.

NON-FICTION PICK OF THE WEEK

Datsun Angel
Anna Broinowsk, Hachette, $34.99

Anna Broinowski is standing at the side of the road, thumb extended. The plan is to hitchhike from Sydney to Darwin. While inspired by the Beatniks, she dreams of puncturing their “macho legacy and jazz-fuelled ramblings with some cynical eighties cool”. The first car to stop is a blue Datsun so full of crates that there’s no room for passengers. The driver apologises and calls out, “Hang in, be brave, stay true!” And despite some wild and hair-raising rides, she does. This is a tale that never takes its foot off the accelerator from the moment we are plunged into the misogynist mayhem of O-Week to the terrifying hours spent in a road train with two goons straight out of Thelma and Louise. Part journey into the dark heart of Australia, part love story, this electric, defiant, darkly funny memoir is fuelled by the outsized passions of youth and tempered by the retrospective wisdom of age.

Humpback Highway
Vanessa Pirotta, NewSouth, $32.99

Anyone who has sighted or swum with whales knows something of their ineffable magic. In both the original and popular sense of the word, they are awesome. This mood of wonder and enthusiasm suffuses Vanessa Pirotta’s colloquial and chatty story of her many close encounters with whales and her research into humpbacks, in particular, as a wildlife scientist. She tells of how she became besotted with whales as a girl, her postgraduate work developing a drone that could collect whale snot – the matter a whale expels when it blows – the epic odysseys these whales undertake to feed and breed, the moving bond between mother and calf, and the man-made hazards that threaten them. Humpback Highway also serves an educative role, shedding light on the nitty-gritty of a scientific career, the data-crunching and application of technology, as well as the passion and oceanic adventure.

Irresistible
Joshua Paul Dale, Profile, $44.99

Cuteness as a cultural phenomenon might seem to be a relatively recent development. Think Shirley Temple, emojis, wide-eyed cartoon characters or Hello Kitty. All easily belittled as saccharine and lightweight. Yet the Japanese mania for all things childlike and charming can be traced back to the literary classic The Pillow Book’s “list of adorable things” written more than 1000 years ago. The biological pull of cuteness goes back even further, argues Joshua Dale. It is written into our DNA. Zoologist Konrad Lorenz first noted this when he observed how certain features in baby animals inspire a nurturing impulse in adults. The cultural corollary is cuteness as a force that breaks down barriers between genders, and adults and children, helping us drop our guard to be more open to others. “In a world that feels increasingly polarised,” asks Dale, “is this such a bad thing?”

No Singing in Gum Trees
Jeremy Hill, Wakefield Press, $54.95

There are many ways to tell the story of an artist’s life. The most conventional treats it as a bid for recognition and fame. The more nuanced approaches the life and work on its own terms. This portrait begins with the standard formula, describing Australian artist Max Martin as someone who “stood briefly on the mountaintop but died in obscurity”. But over the course of his narrative, Jeremy Hill sketches a much more interesting and complex picture of a man of diverse talents – painter, choreographer, scenic artist, set designer, and peace activist; a committed Catholic who eschewed artistic circles, despite acclaim for his early work at the Royal Academy Exhibition in the 1920s. Martin’s desire to provide steady support for his family, his humility and his satisfaction with what he had achieved in his art freed him from the need to pursue what the world calls success.

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